What’s the best electric vehicle to listen to?

Noise is one of the exciting new frontiers of electric vehicles – because of course everything gets much quieter when you take the controlled explosion of dangerous liquids out of the equation. 

But what to replace the roar of burning petrol with? Some carmakers who were early out of the electric traps thought it was best simply to replicate the joyous din of internal combustion using a series of speakers dotted about the car, pumping out the revvy noise of a nice V6 commensurate with the car’s speed. Something to ease the transition of uncertain drivers who would be too freaked out by the wind noise around the wipers, or the whistle and whine of an electric motor. Perhaps they would abandon their futuristic new car at the first set of traffic lights and run off into nearby streets until the sensory overload died down. 

Of course, the main reason to have an electric car make some noise as it trundles down a city street is not to stroke the owner’s ego (they’ll have enough of that every time they pass a petrol station price board and shake their head meaningfully and not without a large dollop of smugness) but add safety. That’s the European Union, that is. They’ve been trying to add safety for years, with their crash tests and their equipment and electronic gizmos. A car running silently through the urban jungle is a dangerous predator, and people who can’t hear are its easy prey. 

So back in 2019 the European Commission said that electric cars had to make a sound while driving at speeds up to 12mph or during reversing, but not be louder than a typical combustion-engined car. Or too quiet. The new rules also stipulated that EVs had to emit a continuous sound that was indicative of the vehicle’s behaviour. So no pounding techno and it had to change as the car got faster or slower so that pedestrians had a clue what the car was doing. 

This new frontier isn’t exactly lawless, then, it comes with certain rules to follow. But that certainly hasn’t stifled carmakers’ creativity. Inside the Renault Zoe, for instance, it sounds like you’re being tailed by a particularly heavenly choir of angels. The first time you drive one you’ll think you’re about to die. The company says that it hired a composer to come up with its electric car sounds, taking inspiration from sci-fi films such as THX 1138 and Gattaca. Seems a bit mean making anyone sit through those, though. 

Porsche describes its efforts as “harmonious and emotive”, while Nissan has given its sound a name, ‘Canto’, which was “carefully created by sound designers and engineers at Nissan Japan” and tweaked for Europe at its European technical centre in Bedford. 

There’s one carmaker though that has taken the game on a massive step in the same gonzo style as its design department. BMW recently announced that it was engaging the services of Academy Award-winning cinematic music maker Hans Zimmer to craft the score of its electric masterpieces. It also inadvertently revealed at the same the presence of a ‘creative director sound’ on the company payroll. 

You’d think a fellow this busy would phone it in, or at least send a tasty chord over via WhatsApp, but he’s worked hard to “humanise the technology” in the electric BMW range, crafting sounds that would evoke a soothing reaction in the driver. In fact, he might even have taken it a bit too seriously: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, we have a unique opportunity to redesign and redefine the sounds of our cities.” You’re just trying to stop guide dogs getting run over, Hans.

Still, you’ve got to admire that kind of effort and BMW has paid top dollar to be able to intellectualise car noise to this extent. There are many reasons you might not choose to get yourself a BMW iX, but its harmonic Oscar-worthy soundscape certainly isn’t one of them.