People are still unable to hear electric vehicles, a new study has confirmed. 

Amid complaints that the cars were “silent and deadly”, the EU ordered in 2019 that all new EVs be designed to emit a sound while being driven. 

However, seven years on, the research has found that many still struggle to associate it with an oncoming vehicle. 

 “Since 2019, four-wheel vehicles, electric vehicles have to produce this artificial, sometimes futuristic sound,” Flaithrí Neff of the Technological University of the Shannon explained on Moncrieff.  

“We wanted to look at that in context for how people are actually still experiencing those encounters with electric vehicles. 

“And unfortunately, we did find that that is still negative; that actually aligns with studies in Sweden, Britain and Germany, comparing conventional petrol and diesel sounds with these newer electric vehicle sounds.”

However, while the devices were fitted with the best of intentions, people still struggle to associate the sound they make with a car. 

“They weren't able to know how far away the vehicles were, which direction they were coming from,” Mr Neff added. 

“And even though the regulation does specify things like it has to be a certain volume or it has to have certain tones in the signature of the sound, there is something different that's going on when we hear a petrol or diesel engine. 

“[They are] much richer in terms of the type of sounds that it's actually producing due to the mechanical aspects of the engine compared to electric vehicles.” 

Main image: An EV. Picture by: Alamy.com