If you think the smooth quiet of EVs is too boring, these concepts might make some, uh, sense.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your senses. In response to the quiet and smooth nature of EVs, a recently published patent from Audi explores ways to make electric vehicles more dramatic, adding back in some of the sensations that their electric motors and the lack of an engine’s tiny explosions have robbed us of. The ideas range from interesting to downright wacky.

German patent application DE 10 2025 107 436 A1 is wide-ranging, but its two sets of claims center on ways to make the EV experience more sensorial. Synthesized engine sounds predate removing the internal-combustion element of a vehicle’s powertrain, and they only seem to be more popular on EVs, which are so quiet that engineers have to attack often-ignored sources of sound like tire and wind noise. The patent has a few solutions to this perceived problem.

The smooth operation of electric motors is cast as a negative here, with the amplification of mechanical vibration and sound as the answer. Essentially, instead of isolating the powertrain from the cabin, engineers would create a direct connection, possibly using hollow steel, to transmit motor vibrations to the occupants. (Your German word of the day is Schwingungsübertragungselement, meaning “vibration-transmission element.”) Audi could also leave out some of the sound deadening currently used to quell the subtle whirr of electric motors.

Most EVs use single-speed reduction gears, although a handful of Porsche, Audi, and Mercedes models have two-speed transmissions.

Source link