Many electric car manufacturers are exploring new options when it comes to sound. Even an electric car has to sound good. Due to the absence of a loud internal combustion engine, a unique exterior sound has been engineered into the new 2020 Revero GT to alert distracted pedestrians that a car is nearby and provide the luxury electric vehicle with a special audible technology unique to the brand that created it.
Sound engineers at Southern California-based luxury electric automaker and high-tech incubator Karma Automotive developed their low-speed exterior audible sound in partnership with ECCO Safety Group, a global leader in safety and warning products based in Boise, Idaho.
Karma’s Director of Infotainment Systems and Connected Car, Joe Durre described the Revero GT’s exterior sound as a low-level, throaty-electric hum, like electronic audio tones heard in many futuristic movies or when an electric guitar is first plugged into an amplifier.
It’s also a tone, he says, that could be customizable in future products, especially vehicles that grow from Karma’s Project e-Klipse, a global all-electric vehicle platform being readied for 2021.
Exterior sounders developed by ECCO safety systems are placed in the front and rear of the Revero GT and emit a speed dependent sound spectrum at specific sound pressure level depending on the speed. When powered up and stationary or traveling forward or reverse below 18.6 mph (30 km/hour), the Revero emits a sound crafted specifically for the brand that’s loud enough to help alert people that a moving vehicle is nearby.
