An Electric Car Update
Jun 27th, 2011 | 8 responses
Today on PRI’s “The World,” I heard a heartening story. Somebody was listening, somewhere. And that’s a good thing. Here is my original post:
5 APRIL 2010 · 8:55 PM
Lazy Pro-Animal Blogging – Oregon Edition
Electric cars are coming to Oregon, and they’re trying to figure out where to site the charging stations. I had been waiting for the right time to make this observation, and that time came.
Here, in my traditional style of precisely 250 words — not 249, not 251 — is my letter, as published in the Eugene Register-Guard last week. (Note the headline was NOT my idea. See here.)
Electric cars threaten animals
We need to address a serious problem that comes with electric cars: They are silent. And deadly.
The problem we have is that our animals, domestic and wild, have grown used to listening for the sound of our internal combustion engines. Electric cars make no such sound, and I very much fear that we’re about to create a senseless abattoir of road-kill, as our pets and wildlife try to make the transition from dodging noisy internal combustion engines to avoiding silent electric vehicles.
Electric cars are noted everywhere as being extraordinarily quiet, and that’s the problem. The animal populations have evolved to pay attention to the sound of our autos, and now, with virtually soundless vehicles moving at the same speeds down the same roads, I fear a long period of increasing road kills. The same may well hold true for our own children and adults.
Now, I know from many years of personal experience driving the back roads that deer whistles work. There may be other solutions, and I’m not really proposing any here. But now is the time to take a moment and think about what we can do to avoid a huge and senseless slaughter of our beloved pets and wildlife that we could have prevented, had we taken some time in advance to study and prepare for the problem.
If we don’t pay heed now, most of the wildlife we’re going to be seeing around our highways will be vultures and crows.
###
[...]
As electric vehicles become more and more prevalent on our roads, more and more pedestrians and animals are at risk — not to mention the drivers of those vehicles, if they hit a medium to large size animal. A lot of drivers have been killed hitting cows. Bad for the cow, bad for the car, tragic for the driver and the driver’s family.
If we are WISE, we can avert tragedy….
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Back to the present day. Here’s the story from today’s ”The World,” a radio show on Public Radio International:
HOMEPAGE FEATURE
Adding Sounds to the Silence of Electric Cars
BY THE WORLD ? JUNE 27, 2011The hum of a finely tuned engine is the source of pride for many car owners. Unless, of course, the car is an electric or hybrid, both of which can be pretty quiet. There are some, in fact, who say that electrics are too quiet, and that they pose a danger to pedestrians, cyclists and the sight impaired. But a group of researchers at Warwick University in Britain is testing a range of new noises that may be coming soon to an electric vehicle near you. … “Electric vehicles and hybrids are alarmingly quiet. The concern is that as a road user, as a pedestrian or as a cyclist, we’re just not aware of their presence. And therefore there’s a real danger that there could be an accident.”[...] But something has to be done. The United States has already passed legislation requiring electric vehicles to make noise when traveling at slower speeds, and now Europe is turning its eye, or rather ear, to the problem as well….
So, am I taking credit for anything here?
Nope.
I’m just happy that concrete steps are being taken to avoid a generation of massive roadkill.
That’s a good thing.
Courage.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.
8 Responses to “An Electric Car Update”
Do you have anything other than your gut feeling at shows electric vehicles cause more roadkill? I have been driving an electric truck since 2007 and I have not killed any animals (or children or adults). At speed there is plenty of road noise to hear an electric vehicle coming.
In 2004 I saw several owls dead on the roadside along stretch of road. I was concerned and contacted the Audubon Society. They said that produce commonly falls off over packed transport trucks in that area. The produce attracts mice, the mice attract the owls and dead owls are the result. If you want to prevent roadkills, this seems like a real problem that you can focus on, rather than imagined things that might later be an issue.
Additionally, there is data to show that thousands of people visit the emergency room each year due to medical issues related to unhealthy air due to fossil fuel powered vehicles. Again, a real issue that deserves attention.
PS, my EV is powered by renewable energy
I think it’s fair to point out that pedestrians have depended on sound for a long time one way to determine whether or not a car is coming. Blind people in particular depend on this. Animals have traditionally had problems “getting” roads and cars – to their mortal detriment. Seems like a pretty straightforward issue to me, anecdotal experiences notwithstanding. I’m a fan of quietness in general, but there may be a place for sound in all this.
Btw, I am a fan of electric vehicles, hybrids, high speed rail, walking and biking.
This silence and silence hazard of electric vehicles has been known and discussed for years. (If you’ve driven an EV, you know the silence, which is very pleasant — no noise! That’s even if you have had an internal-combustion vehicle whose engine sound you have relished*.) Typically, concerned people want to have the vehicles constantly ring a bell to alert everyone ahead and around. (And what kind of noise pollution will begin, not merely for the lone EV, but if someday the streets are full of EVs?)
A bell is nothing new — it’s used on bicycles and on locomotives.
There’s no reason the operator of the EV cannot sound a bell or even a horn if someone or something is straying into the vehicle’s path or has been on it and isn’t moving away.
The silence is indeed a hazard, but the quietness of electric traction (especially if accompanied by low-noise as well as low-rolling-resistance tires**) is a major aesthetic appeal accompanying the other appeals of EVs (being electrical, the efficiency compared to internal combustion, the excellent torque characteristics for a road vehicle). I hope
And in addition to the electric vehicle silence being subject to being hyped sometimes (only?) as a threat, I have to laugh at the lack of responsibility on the part of pedestrians and cyclists, and laugh especially loudly to myself when the serious problem we face nowadays with pedestrian hazards is pedestrians’ “texting” or listening to music and ignoring their surroundings and hazards(!).
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/06/01/distracted-pedestrians-pose-hazard-to-themselves-drivers
Presumably electric vehicles could have obstruction detection that sounds a bell or horn (or even brakes the vehicle to a stop), but there’s no need to rush to insist on additional complications and expense for EVs, when common sense ought to be sufficient. (And there’s no reason for activists to go on a “crusade” against EVs, any more than against wind power, when whatever the activists decry or oppose begins to show signs of being successful and possibly later, proliferative.)
P.S. Don’t only think of electric automobiles and trucks, but also think of smaller electric vehicles like today’s motorized wheelchairs as well as golf carts (and industrial forklifts, e.g.), and bear in mind that when our population ages, and people cannot drive, they may still desire low-speed vehicles that will be operated on sidewalks along with pedestrians.
* Second-generation RX-7, sustained 95 mph: Listen to the song on the following video and note during much of the earlier portion of the song, the soft, constant sustained background tone and its pitch. [grin] The rotary engine was louder, but still sweet.
** Anyone who has been on the road for some time knows that often it’s tire noise that is louder and worse than engine noise (and even when moderate, the collective tire noise of all vehicles on the road is substantial.) Ever since SUVs became a big fad and the vehicles got bigger, and many owners because poseurs and got big tires with very aggressive tread designs (“tearing up” or “tearing through” the air, as I began calling it to myself), the tire noise can actually be painful if it’s really bad and you’re next to it.
J. Spencer wrote:
I suspect it’s because it’s unnatural. EIther the animals are confused and frightened, or often, I suspect, they don’t conceive the hazards.
Does this mean we have to find the human equivalent of the popular “deer whistle” (that interrupts music and cell phones)* that needs to be mounted on vehicles? Hopefully something electronic and silent to everyone else!
*** Incidentally, what about the dead quiet cabins (interiors) of EVs (which make a top-quality sound system worth installing!) and the lack of external sound cues to the drivers if the cabins are sealed (windows closed)? ***
* Don’t laugh. Extremist activists might demand all vehicles and all electronic devices be set up to enable automatic interruption. (and automatic evasion or stopping by vehicles, etc, ad nauseum)
(Hopefully the money will be gone and normal people tired of such things by the time anyone suggests or demands such a thing. However, something electronic that is silent to all but the objects of the alerting mechanism[s] has an intrinsic appeal.)
Second-generation RX-7
Awesome engine on that sucker.
Thanks DLS for your interesting comments on the subject. As for the peds and bikers who are unaware of their surroundings due to being plugged in, well… not to sound cold, but natural selection is an ongoing process.