Disable EV Sound on 2021 Leaf?

[LeftieBiker]

That's a hypothesis, presented as future fact. Do you really think that a group of ICE vehicles is silent when it starts moving when a traffic light changes...? You may just be acclimated to the sound, and thus don't consciously hear it.

[Twigsandleaves]

Either way, it's new and I live in a state that takes inspection seriously so the point is moot.

When an EV is inspected, does the garage examine the speakers? Or listen to the volume?

I suspect the only thing a tech doing the inspection would notice (realistically) would be the lack of the back up chime, it would be easy to notice and not require driving around (which they don't do for inspections anyway, obviously.)

Whether the individual tech would actually check for those things is hard to say with EVs being a fraction of the cars coming through and Leafs a smaller fraction of that, but it would be a pain to have to deal with it if they did notice it in this iffy scenario.

[Twigsandleaves]

That's a hypothesis, presented as future fact. Do you really think that a group of ICE vehicles is silent when it starts moving when a traffic light changes...? You may just be acclimated to the sound, and thus don't consciously hear it.

I'm only referring to my own experience as a pedestrian walking (literally) hundreds if not thousands of miles (for many years I only rode buses or walked.) I wasn't referring to groups of cars. Maybe I'll dig up some decibel data on this to see if it's just my imagination since the original topic is clearly dead and now we're just debating the ethics of making an $37,000 EV at least as quiet as a $12,000 ICE cruising along at 15mph through a neighborhood.

[knightmb]

I thought the same way years ago, but I've driven my Leaf with all the sounds turned off and I was constantly having to dodge pedestrians because of that, to the point that I turned all the sounds back on. It really does make that much of a difference. Not because ICE can be quiet too, but because people have trouble pinpointing the direction of a sound when they don't pay attention. ICE vehicles have a lot of low frequency sounds that scale up and travel better. People tend to get accustomed to listening for these tell tell sounds. A silent EV that you are only depending on the tire sound to alert people isn't enough because the tire sounds just aren't good enough in many (but not all) situations for people to figure out where you are. In a parking garage, sound reflections might be good enough, but out in the open it's hard to pinpoint where the "car" is coming from, especially if you have a bunch of other cars also making tire noise while they drive around in the environment as well. When I had all my VPS sounds turned off, I was constantly scaring people who didn't pay attention in parking lots. It was funny at first until one day someone fell over because of it, so I decided to leave most of them on and increase the brightness of my reverse lights to insane levels so I could leave my reverse sound off at least. I'm one of the few here that likes my "tron movie" forward sound.

Thanks for all the feedback. I have no intentions or interest in modifying the speaker, if I was going to do anything it would probably be unplugging the cable, but the likelihood is very low.

As far as all the concern about pedestrians being caught unaware I just have to disagree. Almost any modern ICE vehicle I've been near in a parking lot that wasn't in bad enough condition to generally sound like garbage (or modified by the idiots that think their exhaust system needs to sound manly) is nearly silent. If I avoid them in reverse it's because of the reverse lights, not hearing their tires or their engine.

The same goes for the majority of ICE vehicles at low speeds, in my experience. I hear the tires crunching on the pavement or their radio, but the engine and exhaust is nearly silent and certainly doesn't have some ridiculous howling sound. Why should an EV should be held to a different standard?

Either way, it's new and I live in a state that takes inspection seriously so the point is moot.

[Twigsandleaves]

I thought the same way years ago, but I've driven my Leaf with all the sounds turned off and I was constantly having to dodge pedestrians because of that, to the point that I turned all the sounds back on. It really does make that much of a difference. Not because ICE can be quiet too, but because people have trouble pinpointing the direction of a sound when they don't pay attention. ICE vehicles have a lot of low frequency sounds that scale up and travel better. People tend to get accustomed to listening for these tell tell sounds. A silent EV that you are only depending on the tire sound to alert people isn't enough because the tire sounds just aren't good enough in many (but not all) situations for people to figure out where you are. In a parking garage, sound reflections might be good enough, but out in the open it's hard to pinpoint where the "car" is coming from, especially if you have a bunch of other cars also making tire noise while they drive around in the environment as well. When I had all my VPS sounds turned off, I was constantly scaring people who didn't pay attention in parking lots. It was funny at first until one day someone fell over because of it, so I decided to leave most of them on and increase the brightness of my reverse lights to insane levels so I could leave my reverse sound off at least. I'm one of the few here that likes my "tron movie" forward sound.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine who said he'd been hit by a late model camry going about 15mph, it was just that quiet. So in one or two sentences he proves my point for me while also proving the counterpoint you're mentioning here. Your experience here is valuable so thanks for adding it.

Side note, I didn't realize you could chance the brightness of the reverse lights. I'd definitely like those as bright as possible, some of the areas I find myself working in are pitch black deluxe.

[knightmb]

I mentioned this to a friend of mine who said he'd been hit by a late model camry going about 15mph, it was just that quiet. So in one or two sentences he proves my point for me while also proving the counterpoint you're mentioning here. Your experience here is valuable so thanks for adding it.

Side note, I didn't realize you could chance the brightness of the reverse lights. I'd definitely like those as bright as possible, some of the areas I find myself working in are pitch black deluxe.

You can fix your quotes later, but I can pull out what you wanted to say.

These are the LED lights I got to replace my bulbs, bright enough to almost look like backwards headlights at night.
https://www.sylvania-automotive.com/syl ... D.BP2.html

It does mention "A Load Equalizer is generally recommended when the replacement LED bulb is not behaving as expected.", but I didn't have to worry about this when I put it in my Leaf, seems they draw enough power. I do remember that they have a certain direction they must plug in to match the positive and negative polarity, so I had the assistance of my family to put the Leaf in reverse while holding the brakes so I could get them in the correct polarity, so that part is a little annoying.

[goldbrick]

It does mention "A Load Equalizer is generally recommended when the replacement LED bulb is not behaving as expected."

I'd guess that is mostly relevant for turn signals to prevent the 'hyper-flash' symptoms that can occur if a bulb is burnt out or missing.

[gcrouse]

I remember not too long after i got mine in 2017 and around here EVs weren't much of a thing yet and I was leaving the parking lot near a bar with a bunch of folks outside and they had really puzzled stares towards my car due to the VSP. I think that's probably the only time my leaf seemed cool to a bunch of people.

. I'm one of the few here that likes my "tron movie" forward sound.

[LeftieBiker]

I'm one of the few here that likes my "tron movie" forward sound.

Count me as another. I was an Arcade Wizard from the late Seventies through much of the Eighties, and Tron was one of my favorite games. Are you using the Recognizer moving sound or the Light Cycles sound?

[knightmb]

I'm one of the few here that likes my "tron movie" forward sound.

Count me as another. I was an Arcade Wizard from the late Seventies through much of the Eighties, and Tron was one of my favorite games. Are you using the Recognizer moving sound or the Light Cycles sound?

In my head, it's the Light Cycle
I've also noticed (because of the recent ice and snow), that the VPS sound follows the wheel speed real time and it will exceed the "25 mph" barrier if you spin it up fast enough. I was out in an empty parking lot of ice, so I just goofing around, that's when I noticed that for one thing, when the wheels are spinning out of control, it limits the accelerator input to "half" power. I was hitting the pedal to the floor over and over and it would not go past half-power. I thought to myself, very neat, that have some "sanity" limits on the throttle when the speed is starting out low.
The other funny thing was from a stop, spinning the wheels up to +30 mph made the VPS sound go higher than I've ever heard it before and it was real time, I could vary the wheel spin as fast as possible by modulating the pedal and the VPS would keep up with it, that part was kind of neat as I thought the VPS would have a "lag" to it when the speed was changing so much, but it was all real time, very impressive Nissan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymz3_GI7eMg