Electric RallyCar Development

[mknight]

It's not the sound in itself that attracts people, it's the sense of speed that is created by the sound.

Its very difficult to judge the speed of a car just visually. A low rev megane r4 always looks slow because it sounds like a tractor, while a high revving s1600 car may be slower but looks a lot faster.

Yes, but does the sense of speed created by sound come from "knowing/expecting" that more sound=more speed? I would expect so.

"By experience" we "know" that more engine sound=faster. If our experience from early on is different, maybe we won't get that association at all. This is what I thought when my son wondered why the cars are noisy (and slow, as it was an R2) instead of "silent" and fast. For me it was a bit of a revelation moment. Precisely because he does not have that "sound=speed" association from before, maybe he doesn't mind less sound.

Also, the sound alows you to hear what a driver is doing. Is he keeping his foot down or is he lifting, is he breaking early or late. Is he driving clean or is he pushing.

Therefore if they actually want people to come and watch electric cars race, they will need a way to create sound that indicates how much throttle the drivers applies.

Totally agree.

The electric Fabia guys say that they somehow tried it and it seems to show on the last vid.

But for me it's not distinct enough yet. Lifting is ok, but hard to say how much throttle he has and braking is weird.