Do you hear a constant whine?

My wife has been complaining from Day 1 about the constant high pitched whine she hears when riding or driving our Leaf. With a semi-significant hearing loss, this is not something I have been able to perceive, but today, MOTOR TREND magazine arrived with a big article comparing the Leaf, Volt and current Prius.

In this article the engineering staff of MT did recordings of the sound levels in each of the cars, and they CONFIRM my wife's complaint. There is a very strong and constant high frequency "feedback" in the Leaf that is not at all similarly present in the Volt.

Any of the rest here, notice this constant high frequency "feedback" during Leaf operation?

There's a thread already: Leaf making whining noise.

Sounds like the same thing.

I am not convinced the earlier thread is about the same range of noise, as what I am addressing is a high pitched sound that is present at almost all driving speeds, even freeway speed.

I can definitely hear the high pitch sound...at high speed it is faint because the tire noise is louder (and the fan is also louder), but it does change its pitch with speed/acceleration. I actually love that sound - like a jet engine. At low speed it is the VSP, very faint, and I can barely hear it and it is constant pitch at any low speed. You can press the on/off VSP button and verify that it is VSP - but it is very faint, at least from inside the car. But it does sound the same as the motor sound at high speed.

I heard a constant whine from prospective owners who hadn't received their Leaf yet... as a matter of fact, I resemble that remark. :lol: However, the whine went away when I received my Leaf and I haven't heard it in or out of the car since.

GeorgeParrott said:

My wife has been complaining from Day 1 about the constant high pitched whine she hears when riding or driving our Leaf.

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Just tell her that it is the whine of the jet engine in the car and is completely normal. :mrgreen:

occ said:

I actually love that sound - like a jet engine.

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Me too! Reminds me of a jet taking off including the back-in-the-seat feeling when I floor it.

Power of suggestion: I loved the jet engine sound until I read the Motor Trend article, with its sound spectrograms and talk of the writer's family being driven to bed with headaches. Now I'm slightly irritated by the high pitched sound. Take-home lesson, don't read articles after you've bought your car. :lol:

I love the noise. Driving this car is like gliding on butter.

the switching frequency of the inverter is probably in the audible range for your wife.. the current pulses make the windings in the motor vibrate at that frequency and she can then hear it.

Here is a link to the section of the MOTOR TREND article that discusses the sound level of each of the cars, Leaf, Volt, Prius tested:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/alternative/1108_2011_chevrolet_volt_vs_2011_nissan_leaf_vs_2011_toyota_prius_comparison/acceleration_noise.html

Check out the profile for the Leaf !

There's VSP, there's motor with reduction gears, and I think there's a third noice in leaf that I think is coming from Inverter, it is a very high-pitch sound of constant frequency, it does not increase/decrease frequency when you accelerate/decelerate, and it is not going away when you turn off VSP.
The only time it varies is when there's no power applied to wheels (I mean when you coast at central dot or in neutral the sound is gone) but as soon as acceleration or regen is going on, you can hear the constant high-pitch component in Leaf noise if you hearing is more or less good. I haven't heard similar sound from any hybrid, but it reminds me of sound of a bad flyback transformer in old CRT TVs, which was caused by either loose oscillating windings or transformer core.
The thing is, that most adults don't hear those frequencies, I still do ant it IS pretty loud, especially if I drive with open windows close to some obstacle (fence or concrete barrier on the road)

Try this out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/embed/_DxJJrMbVic[/youtube] If you can hear this, you should be able to hear your Leaf's inverter noise

Here you can check your high frequency hearing:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/embed/00y198cE-IU[/youtube]

GeorgeParrott said:

Check out the profile for the Leaf !

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I did and saw that the LEAF is the quietest at take off. I rarely hit 50mph (only on freeways) so I still like the subtle whine of my jet engine.

Inverter-

This reminds me of anti-loitering sound devices that shop owners can install which most folks can't hear. And the teens that figured it out and made high pitched ring tones that their teachers couldn't hear. (of course these stories may just be urban legends - haven't looked)

UkrainianKozak said:

snip snip...
I haven't heard similar sound from any hybrid, but it reminds me of sound of a bad flyback transformer in old CRT TVs, which was caused by either loose oscillating windings or transformer core.
The thing is, that most adults don't hear those frequencies, I still do ant it IS pretty loud, especially if I drive with open windows close to some obstacle (fence or concrete barrier on the road)

Try this out:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/_DxJJrMbVic If you can hear this, you should be able to hear your Leaf's inverter noise

Here you can check your high frequency hearing:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/00y198cE-IU

Click to expand...

I used to be able to hear those flyback transformers. Now I have tinitus. I didn't hear anything from that youtube demo but my kitty freaked out so I know there was a sound. :shock:

EVDRIVER said:

Inverter-

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So the 'jet engine whine' isn't the motor, but the inverter?

UkrainianKozak said:

Try this out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/embed/_DxJJrMbVic[/youtube] If you can hear this, you should be able to hear your Leaf's inverter noise

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Can't hear nuthin'.

UkrainianKozak said:

Here you can check your high frequency hearing:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/embed/00y198cE-IU[/youtube]

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This clip seems suspect to me. The sound at frequencies that the caption claims to be between 15 KHz and 18 KHz appears to be decreasing in frequency not increasing.

UkrainianKozak said:

There's VSP, there's motor with reduction gears, and I think there's a third noice in leaf that I think is coming from Inverter, it is a very high-pitch sound of constant frequency, it does not increase/decrease frequency when you accelerate/decelerate, and it is not going away when you turn off VSP.

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EVDRIVER said:

Inverter-

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LEAFfan said:

So the 'jet engine whine' isn't the motor, but the inverter?

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The motor's whine/whistle goes up and down with speed, as expected. It sounds like ( ) people are saying that the inverter noise is a different noise and is fixed in frequency.

LEAFfan said:

EVDRIVER said:

Inverter-

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So the 'jet engine whine' isn't the motor, but the inverter?

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No, that is likely a lack of reading the user manual to turn off VSP. The high frequency is from the inverter and it is very faint for most normal hearing people. Most of the whining comes from the forum. I can hear the inverter pitch and I know how to turn off VSP, the car is very intuitive actually, even the ignition. However, the entire NAV is a clumped together POS compared to even domestic offerings. Can you hear that whine? :shock: I hear it every time I hit "ok"

LMAO :lol: the constant whine is so human isn't it...

Stoaty said:

I heard a constant whine from prospective owners who hadn't received their Leaf yet... as a matter of fact, I resemble that remark. :lol: However, the whine went away when I received my Leaf and I haven't heard it in or out of the car since.

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Then again, it's more than a small miracle that this car exists and it would be no surprise if at least some of the "noise" we hear is being planted in an effort to derail EV's... There are people's livelihoods at steak after all, I wouldn't expect them to go down without a fight.

If a manufacturer came out with a car the size of the LEAF that got 240 MPG, it would rock the industry... this is essentially what Nissan has done. IMHO, the industry is just beginning to comprehend the implications of what will happen when the public catches on! I can't help but think that we can expect the whining to reach a feverish pitch at some point, as efforts are made to assure the motor trend "steers clear" of pure EV's like the LEAF, and they gain in popularity despite it all.
G