Crafting the ‘Mercedes sound’ to meet EU rules on EVs

By ahmadzulizwan, 25 July 2019
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Since 1 July, carmakers in Europe has had to comply with regulations which state that all hybrid, EV and fuel cell vehicles (even trucks and buses) which make very little noise, are installed with a warning sound generator. The device is called AVAS (Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System) and must operate at speeds below 20kph as this is when EVs make the least noise and may be dangerous to other road users, including pedestrians.

Although the actual warning sound is free to be designed by the respective car manufacturer, the parameters for how the AVAS warning may and may not sound are defined in great detail by the European Union.

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For Mercedes, this responsibility is handled by sound experts of the acoustic test facility at the Mercedes-Benz Technology Centre (MTC). Microphones are plenty around here, used to help develop a unique e-sound for each electric model by the carmaker. Simulations, measurements, evaluations and detailed improvements continue until the result is perfect.

[Mercedes-Benz Malaysia has already previewed the future of Malaysia with a pure electric Mercedes model when it brought the EQC recently. Read about that, here]

During the test drive phase, the most important passenger is in fact the artificial head which is able to detect the tiniest noises.

According to Mercedes the AVAS sound may differ slightly between Europe, Japan and China. This is especially true for AVAS in America which has some specific demands, such as the volume of the sound and that the vehicle must already make a sound even when stationary and gear is engaged. However, an important rule that is applied by almost all markets is that AVAS cannot be switched off by the customer.

[Click here to read our earlier article about the new regulation and AVAS]