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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

> Engine noise. Some cars/motorbikes are specifically designed/modified to be loud because that’s what the customer wants.

Then there are the cars that aren't loud, so they play recordings of engine noise over the audio system.

BMW has apparently gone as far as making the fake engine noise user-configurable, except that you can't turn it off. Because if you don't want to be forced to listen to fake engine noise, you're not the type of customer BMW wants, I guess. You probably shouldn't be allowed to vote or own property either.

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Playing engine noise is one of the most ridiculous thing I've ever known. I love BMW noise. I owned old BMW and I loved its sound. But I loved it because it was produced by engine that I loved, not because it was produced by some stupid subwoofer. I have no idea how would anyone buy that tech and I lost my faith in humanity that BMW did not go bankrupt with this move. I know that the only BMW car I would ever buy is E34, it was last BMW worth those letters.

If you had pets and an EV, it might be useful, at least on startup.

I think this is a case of some misguided product managers (and since German car companies are known to be huge bureacracies - no wonder). It seems like there is a great important safety aspect to it - that first you can hear that the vehicle is moving (there is an audio cue), and second is the affordance that you pressing on the accelerator has an effect (that the accelerator/electronics is not broken) - idem for braking.

Interestingly enough, railway engines had this problem solved a number of decades ago when they started using mechanical speedometers based on a clock. When the vehicle would start moving, the speedometer would start ticking. The faster you go the faster the ticking. Seems like electric cars need something similar (it does seem like a very useful safety feature to be honest).

> When the vehicle would start moving, the speedometer would start ticking. The faster you go the faster the ticking. Seems like electric cars need something similar

This would effectively prevent many people from listening to music in the car. It would not be tolerated.

Which brings up the point that people very frequently choose to drown out the engine noise. That obviously limits how useful the engine noise can be, though of course it isn't very useful anyway. You cannot fail to sense that the car is moving if your eyes are open. You cannot fail to sense whether the brakes are working even if your eyes are closed.

No, these are regulations for the blind. Laws, mind you. For a reason. So the blind don't walk out in front of a car. I agree with these laws. That being said, the noise should NOT be heard inside the car.

If you're gonna be driving a car and creating noise pollution for everyone outside it, you don't get to have peace and quiet inside of it.

Hotter take: horns should be louder inside cars than they are on the outside

> Hotter take: horns should be louder inside cars than they are on the outside

I don't care if it is equal volume or a little taser zap when exceeding some threshold, but a sacrifice must be paid to the gods of annoyance in order to restore balance.

> No, these are regulations for the blind.

No, they aren't.

> Laws, mind you.

No, they aren't.

> For a reason.

Nope.

> That being said, the noise should NOT be heard inside the car.

If you're going to admit that you're talking about something completely different, why say anything at all?

This is noise played inside the car for the occupants, totally unrelated to safety sound played outside. I'm not sure if anyone besides BMW does this.

I've said it before. I'll say it again (and get downvoted heavily again, because fanbois...) but

BMW is an Intelligence Test.

If you bought one, you failed.

That's a much cleverer way of putting it then my 'there no good argument for a BMW, ever'.

Oof. Now is probably your last chance to get a decent naturally asprirated I6 BMW without all that nonsense.

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