Tamara Warren - Writer | Ryan Lugo - Illustartions | Oct. 13, 2022
The New Automotive Sounds of Science
Automakers are pushing to make better use of and offer ever more advanced sound technology.
Ever since the dawn of the automobile, an engine’s sweet siren song was the sound that mattered most after the key was turned and the ignition fired. For decades, the roar of a V-8 would turn pedestrians’ heads and signal thrill time for vehicle occupants. But in recent years, many have bemoaned the loss of mechanical noise on racetracks and roadways as electric and hybrid powertrains slowly chip away at the prominence of the internal combustion engine. Increasingly, it’s the push of a button, the flash of a welcome screen, and a software-generated symphonic greeting that signal the beginning of a modern car’s aural journey.
For automakers and suppliers alike, the increasing absence of traditional powertrain sounds have created new opportunities to rethink sonic engagement inside the car and out. Sound technology is an exploding area of software development in the automotive arena, and for good reason. Because when it comes to the next generation of vehicles, which will largely be propelled by hushed electric-only powertrains and directed using automated driving technologies, sound and voice design will become ever more intentional and integral to the core driving experience.
Fredrik Hagman, an interactive sound designer at Volvo for the past decade, has been studying how vehicle sounds relate to human behavior through the field of psychoacoustics, which tracks drivers’ emotional responses when prompted by the sounds used in cars.
“I think that is the biggest transition in the last five years, where we’re moving more into how we use sound not only as this kind of psychological factor that can affect the user, but also as more of a branding feature, where sound actually plays a role,” Hagman said. “It's not only about [the car] that beeps, it's also that it sounds in line with whatever brand you're designing for.”
The sounds Volvo’s Hagman and others in his field are designing are being executed thanks to an ever more complex network of hardware sensors and software code programmed to manage the interplay, all knitted together by an array of piped-in tones. The use of advanced sound techniques are of particular interest to brands in the luxury and near luxury spaces such as Volvo, who are vying to deliver an ever-increasing wow factor in their in-car experiences to woo potential customers, even as they move toward an electric vehicle future.
Giving Humans the Sounds They Want and Need
“The sound design role has grown in the last couple of years, because basically when you think of the old historic cars, we had lots of mechanical sounds and they are now disappearing because everything is becoming electronic and digitized,” said Thomas Küppers, lead sound engineer for the Mercedes-Benz EQS, the automaker’s first all-electric car entry for the North American market. “We have the lack of mechanical sounds, but we also still want to create a trust in this interaction, and this trust is created by different sensors.” In the Mercedes-AMG EQE, Sport and Sport+ mode are accompanied by programmed digital effects through the speakers in an effort to deliver convincing artificial engine noises.
Through the use of software, carmakers will have even greater flexibility to personalize sound profiles and other features from owner to owner, or to different passengers in the car through defined zones. “If I'm dropping my children off at school in the morning, I might want one mood,” Küppers said. “Once they're gone and I'm alone in my vehicle I might want a whole other mood. That could change from day to day and year to year, depending on who gets to control it in the car.”
Other specialized sound techniques could help simulate, say, old-school engine noise as an EV accelerates. Paul Williams, the head of Bentley’s Mulliner division, believes that some drivers interpret electric cars as lacking performance when the traditional roar of an engine is absent. He sees it as an opportunity for its customers to further customize their cars.
“Anyone who drives [an EV] is absolutely certain that there's less performance in the electric car. Bringing that acoustic engagement is a real challenge. A lot of people are doing a lot of different things,” Williams said. “Do you bring in that artificial sound? Do you try to make it sound like a combustion powertrain, because that's what people are used to? Do you create a new sound? We see that as an area where we can do something special. As part of the process where we inspect the car and talk about all the finishes, you could introduce that aspect of digital finishing to the car, as well.”
Sound programming can also vary from region to region. Across geographic markets, drivers often respond differently to unique sounds and cues emanating from various screens and graphics, requiring automotive experts to understand the language and cultural nuances of their customers. “When you buy a vehicle, the hardware it has may be the same in China and in the U.S. and here in the European market,” Küppers said, “but sounds using software could make it different,”.
Volvo's Fredrik Hagman has spent the last decade-plus working to understand how humans interact with sounds in cars so Volvo can better optimize the overall sound experience for its owners.
The Volvo Cars Acoustic Laboratory, Opened in 2009, Part of the NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) Centre at Volvo Cars
Developing a set of sounds isn’t simply left up to the engineers. It’s a creative skillset that requires tone, timing, and musicality. Multiple departments at a single car company work with traditional and new tech-focused suppliers in this field on a range of disciplines from software engineers to in-house sound designers. Rawand Baziany is a sound designer at Mercedes-Benz, who works closely with the sound engineering team. He also has a strong background in music, having founded a rockabilly music production studio in Germany. Like Volvo’s Hageman, Baziany also utilizes the field of psychoacoustics to help create sounds for different aspects of vehicle operation.
“From the creative side you start with a very big vision, like when I come from my background in music production there are no limits for creating a sound,” Baziany said. “It can be very exciting just in one moment, but when you design sounds for everyday use it has to be on point, and it has to be integrated in the interior.” Sound use is not just about what sounds pleasant to the occupants, but how the brain interprets the command to engage with the vehicle. “There's a lot of psychology behind acoustics. We have a field called psychoacoustics, and this deals with the topic of how this sound is interacting with humans or how the moods are influenced and how you perceive the sounds,” he added.
Another critical part of sound design relies on sounds that are filtered out of the car from the outside world to keep the cabin quiet—a race that automakers and suppliers have focused on for decades in noise and vibration labs, which was once a mechanical engineering challenge. In an era when less engine noise allows more natural sounds to seep into the car, it’s a more obvious area of focus that will rely heavily on software. Sound designers and engineers use software to cancel out unwanted noises or target sound to specific parts of the vehicles.
“Noise in vehicles causes fatigue. You think of noise in a vehicle being engine and exhaust, and second road noise,” said Peter Kozak, vice president of Bose’s automotive systems. “In EVs we’re focusing on ambient noise, which enables us to reduce road noise. Quiet in automotive is luxury. Quiet in automotive means quality.”
Targeting sounds to different parts of the vehicle to achieve a desired effect is another area where sound is being used. Nick Collins, executive director for vehicle programs at Jaguar Land Rover, walked us through the sound software on the top-of-the-line Range Rover at the vehicle’s U.S. introduction. Jaguar Land Rover has been ramping up its sound management development in partnership with Meridian, the supplier of its high-end speaker systems
“We’ve got a microphone in each wheel arch and that’s picking up road noise,” Collins said. “Then we basically create the mirror image of that and play that out of speakers in the headrest. It’s a bit like noise canceling headphones in the headrest of the car, using the road noise picked up from the wheel arches and canceling it out. That’s why the car is super quiet.”
Developing Desirable Sounds, Excluding Unwanted Ones
Over-the-Air and Into the Car
Another challenge for carmakers is to find literal sound harmony across its product lineup and from model year to model year, based on what system the car is operating on. Car companies are working with big tech for computational power and content sharing, which means streamlining the software that’s already on the road in current models with what’s coming in future model years.
One of the keys to keeping those future fleets in sync sound wise as well as adding and updating new sounds to cars on a regular basis will be through the use of over-the-air updates. According to Kozak, it’s game-changing stuff for sound design specialists. “The idea that you can have a powerful computer platform via telematics that you can update over the air allows you to address quality, but it also unlocks the potential to do better with time,” Kozak said. “It unlocks the possibility to unlock new business models like pay-to-use. Tesla has driven soul searching and urgency in traditional automotive. Tesla has looked at software in a more pioneering way, and that has spurred other automotive groups.”
Creating immersive sound in cars is another hot topic, which requires increased computational processing power and the ability to integrate systems across platforms. To that end, some automakers have been looking for potential partners with expertise and experience in those areas, such as gaming companies, who are emerging as key players in the automotive sound space. Volvo has conducted research with sound designers from the gaming industry. “It's a big difference designing sounds for games compared to automotive,” Hagman said. “You need to simplify it more and more to get the message through.”
Outside the Car Matters, Too
While much of what is happening from a sound perspective is going on inside the car, what’s happening on the outside is also becoming increasingly important and is being approached with safety and environmentalism in mind.
Legislation has already addressed cars that are too quiet for their surroundings. An addendum to the 2010 Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act was created in response to the rise of EVs and hybrids. Since 2018 it has mandated that carmakers project an audible sound from the car so that pedestrians can hear an EV or hybrid approaching at speeds of less than 19 mph.
Volvo uses sounds already made by the car, as well as taking inspiration from nature, to achieve the mandate. “We have chosen a nature-inspired sound character that emulates a light breeze moving through the trees for when the car is driving forward,” Hagman said. “We´ve designed a soothing sound while in standstill, to reflect a resting state of the car, and a pulsating sound when reversing, mainly because a pulsating sound is well established and recognized as a reversing vehicle. Early on in our development process we also added an extra speaker in the rear of the car to ensure that the reversing sound is being radiated from the correct location of the car.”
Although EVs might be quiet, it’s a myth that electrification means completely soundless vehicles. Sound designers have been faced with solving for the whiny, whirring sound generated by EV motors by either masking it with more traditional, artificially generated engine noises or editing it out altogether.
Indeed, giving customers the choice to do either could also be another new selling point in the future. Hagman said Volvo's efforts have centered around minimizing any unwanted sounds its cars make. “This is our take on a kind of auditory sustainability, adding as little noise as possible to society,” he said. “The company wants to be responsible. I would believe that this is our take on being kind of a responsible, sound designer for society.”
One thing’s for sure, the more technical cars become, the more sophisticated the sound systems and software will become to interact with the humans inside (and out) of them.
Tim Stevens - Writer
Tim Marrs - illustrations | Oct. 05, 2022
How V2V and V2X Technology Could Change the Auto World
We look back at the long road to get here and the potential that lies just around the next bend.
It sounds like an idyllic vision for the future: Cars automatically and seamlessly talking to other cars to warn about traffic ahead, bicycles wirelessly transmitting their position and speed to nearby vehicles, even construction signs beaming information about upcoming lane closures to oncoming trucks while they’re still miles away.
All these wonderful features are collectively called vehicle-to-vehicle (commonly abbreviated as V2V) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. These technologies are designed to make cars safer, more comfortable, and even more efficient. The core ideas have been tossed around for some 50 years, built on reliable technologies with worldwide deployment. V2V has even become commonplace in certain parts of the world.
Why, then, does this still sound like science fiction in America? It comes down to competing technologies, government reluctance, and an industry betting on the wrong horse.
It’s the Operating System, Stupid
Ever since the dawn of the automobile, an engine’s sweet siren song was the sound that mattered most after the key was turned and the ignition fired. For decades, the roar of a V-8 would turn pedestrians’ heads and signal thrill time for vehicle occupants. But in recent years, many have bemoaned the loss of mechanical noise on racetracks and roadways as electric and hybrid powertrains slowly chip away at the prominence of the internal combustion engine. Increasingly, it’s the push of a button, the flash of a welcome screen, and a software-generated symphonic greeting that signal the beginning of a modern car’s aural journey.
For automakers and suppliers alike, the increasing absence of traditional powertrain sounds have created new opportunities to rethink sonic engagement inside the car and out. Sound technology is an exploding area of software development in the automotive arena, and for good reason. Because when it comes to the next generation of vehicles, which will largely be propelled by hushed electric-only powertrains and directed using automated driving technologies, sound and voice design will become ever more intentional and integral to the core driving experience.
Ever since the dawn of the automobile, an engine’s sweet siren song was the sound that mattered most after the key was turned and the ignition fired. For decades, the roar of a V-8 would turn pedestrians’ heads and signal thrill time for vehicle occupants. But in recent years, many have bemoaned the loss of mechanical noise on racetracks and roadways as electric and hybrid powertrains slowly chip away at the prominence of the internal combustion engine. Increasingly, it’s the push of a button, the flash of a welcome screen, and a software-generated symphonic greeting that signal the beginning of a modern car’s aural journey.
For automakers and suppliers alike, the increasing absence of traditional powertrain sounds have created new opportunities to rethink sonic engagement inside the car and out. Sound technology is an exploding area of software development in the automotive arena, and for good reason. Because when it comes to the next generation of vehicles, which will largely be propelled by hushed electric-only powertrains and directed using automated driving technologies, sound and voice design will become ever more intentional and integral to the core driving experience.
Fredrik Hagman, an interactive sound designer at Volvo for the past decade, has been studying how vehicle sounds relate to human behavior through the field of psychoacoustics, which tracks drivers’ emotional responses when prompted by the sounds used in cars.
“I think that is the biggest transition in the last five years, where we’re moving more into how we use sound not only as this kind of psychological factor that can affect the user, but also as more of a branding feature, where sound actually plays a role,” Hagman said. “It's not only about (the car) that beeps, it's also that it sounds in line with whatever brand you're designing for.”
The sounds Volvo’s Hagman and others in his field are designing are being executed thanks to an ever more complex network of hardware sensors and software code programmed to manage the interplay, all knitted together by an array of piped-in tones. The use of advanced sound techniques are of particular interest to brands in the luxury and near luxury spaces such as Volvo, who are vying to deliver an ever-increasing wow factor in their in-car experiences to woo potential customers, even as they move toward an electric vehicle future.
Giving Humans the Sounds They Want and Need
Developing a set of sounds isn’t simply left up to the engineers. It’s a creative skillset that requires tone, timing, and musicality. Multiple departments at a single car company work with traditional and new tech-focused suppliers in this field on a range of disciplines from software engineers to in-house sound designers. Rawand Baziany is a sound designer at Mercedes-Benz, who works closely with the sound engineering team. He also has a strong background in music, having founded a rockabilly music production studio in Germany. Like Volvo’s Hageman, Baziany also utilizes the field of psychoacoustics to help create sounds for different aspects of vehicle operation.
“From the creative side you start with a very big vision, like when I come from my background in music production there are no limits for creating a sound,” Baziany said. “It can be very exciting just in one moment, but when you design sounds for everyday use it has to be on point, and it has to be integrated in the interior.” Sound use is not just about what sounds pleasant to the occupants, but how the brain interprets the command to engage with the vehicle. “There's a lot of psychology behind acoustics. We have a field called psychoacoustics, and this deals with the topic of how this sound is interacting with humans or how the moods are influenced and how you perceive the sounds,” he added.
Another critical part of sound design relies on sounds that are filtered out of the car from the outside world to keep the cabin quiet—a race that automakers and suppliers have focused on for decades in noise and vibration labs, which was once a mechanical engineering challenge. In an era when less engine noise allows more natural sounds to seep into the car, it’s a more obvious area of focus that will rely heavily on software. Sound designers and engineers use software to cancel out unwanted noises or target sound to specific parts of the vehicles.
“Noise in vehicles causes fatigue. You think of noise in a vehicle being engine and exhaust, and second road noise,” said Peter Kozak, vice president of Bose’s automotive systems. “In EVs we’re focusing on ambient noise, which enables us to reduce road noise. Quiet in automotive is luxury. Quiet in automotive means quality.”
Targeting sounds to different parts of the vehicle to achieve a desired effect is another area where sound is being used. Nick Collins, executive director for vehicle programs at Jaguar Land Rover, walked us through the sound software on the top-of-the-line Range Rover at the vehicle’s U.S. introduction. Jaguar Land Rover has been ramping up its sound management development in partnership with Meridian, the supplier of its high-end speaker systems
“We’ve got a microphone in each wheel arch and that’s picking up road noise,” Collins said. “Then we basically create the mirror image of that and play that out of speakers in the headrest. It’s a bit like noise canceling headphones in the headrest of the car, using the road noise picked up from the wheel arches and canceling it out. That’s why the car is super quiet.”
Developing Desirable Sounds, Excluding Unwanted Ones
Developing a set of sounds isn’t simply left up to the engineers. It’s a creative skillset that requires tone, timing, and musicality. Multiple departments at a single car company work with traditional and new tech-focused suppliers in this field on a range of disciplines from software engineers to in-house sound designers. Rawand Baziany is a sound designer at Mercedes-Benz, who works closely with the sound engineering team. He also has a strong background in music, having founded a rockabilly music production studio in Germany. Like Volvo’s Hageman, Baziany also utilizes the field of psychoacoustics to help create sounds for different aspects of vehicle operation.
“From the creative side you start with a very big vision, like when I come from my background in music production there are no limits for creating a sound,” Baziany said. “It can be very exciting just in one moment, but when you design sounds for everyday use it has to be on point, and it has to be integrated in the interior.” Sound use is not just about what sounds pleasant to the occupants, but how the brain interprets the command to engage with the vehicle. “There's a lot of psychology behind acoustics. We have a field called psychoacoustics, and this deals with the topic of how this sound is interacting with humans or how the moods are influenced and how you perceive the sounds,” he added.
Another critical part of sound design relies on sounds that are filtered out of the car from the outside world to keep the cabin quiet—a race that automakers and suppliers have focused on for decades in noise and vibration labs, which was once a mechanical engineering challenge. In an era when less engine noise allows more natural sounds to seep into the car, it’s a more obvious area of focus that will rely heavily on software. Sound designers and engineers use software to cancel out unwanted noises or target sound to specific parts of the vehicles.
“Noise in vehicles causes fatigue. You think of noise in a vehicle being engine and exhaust, and second road noise,” said Peter Kozak, vice president of Bose’s automotive systems. “In EVs we’re focusing on ambient noise, which enables us to reduce road noise. Quiet in automotive is luxury. Quiet in automotive means quality.”
Targeting sounds to different parts of the vehicle to achieve a desired effect is another area where sound is being used. Nick Collins, executive director for vehicle programs at Jaguar Land Rover, walked us through the sound software on the top-of-the-line Range Rover at the vehicle’s U.S. introduction. Jaguar Land Rover has been ramping up its sound management development in partnership with Meridian, the supplier of its high-end speaker systems
“We’ve got a microphone in each wheel arch and that’s picking up road noise,” Collins said. “Then we basically create the mirror image of that and play that out of speakers in the headrest. It’s a bit like noise canceling headphones in the headrest of the car, using the road noise picked up from the wheel arches and canceling it out. That’s why the car is super quiet.”
Developing Desirable Sounds, Excluding Unwanted Ones
Volvo engineers are using the latest software to help optimize the sound experience.
A Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid undergoes testing at the Volvo sound lab.
The Volvo Cars Acoustic Laboratory, Opened in 2009, Part of the NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) Centre at Volvo Cars
Volvo's Fredrik Hagman has spent the last decade-plus working to understand how humans interact with sounds in cars so Volvo can better optimize the overall sound experience for its owners.