I edged the nose of the new Toyota Prius to turn onto the busy thoroughfare. I felt small and insignificant.  No one could hear me, quiet as a church mouse with the super silent engine. I prayed no one whizzed by and missed me as I leaped forward into the blind spot. And on a few separate occasions, one of our test car drivers left a quiet hybrid running. He couldn’t hear it. Hence the latest quagmire of new technology — the too silent engine. For years, car companies have thrown money into making quieter luxury cars, and now that hybrid and electric engines have achieved that goal it’s back to the drawing board.

The New York Times reported on a precarious side effect of the hydrogen-hybrid industry — cars that are too quiet. That got me to thinking after chatting with a New York based music producer friend who works for Sirius/XM — why not produce automotive sounds?  It could be a sample-based MP3. While you may not have the money or gas guzzler conscious to drive a Shelby GT500 or fully-loaded Dodge Ram, you could sound like one. In fact, tuning could become a whole new form of tune. Or perhaps there’s room for customization here –personalized car tunes.  In fact, Henrik Fisker equipped the Fisker Karma with bumper noises quelled from Hollywood sound effect studios.

The article reports that Nissan is also in talks with the film industry on sounds for the Leaf battery-electric vehicle, and Toyota is engaged with the  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Federation of the Blind and the Society of Automotive Engineers on making faux-sounds. “One possibility is choosing your own noise,” said Nathalie Bauters, a spokeswoman for BMW’s Mini division.

The NY Times article also quoted  Toyota spokesman, John Hanson.  “I don’t know of any injuries related to this, but it is a concern. We are moving rapidly toward broader use of electrification in vehicles, and it’s a fact that these cars are very quiet and could pose a risk to unsighted people.”

While Hollywood is one avenue, there’s a quite a few Detroit producers who could reproduce sounds. The only question is, will they need to license the sample? Or will it be a new ProTools option? Perhaps someone should call Detroit producer Nick Speed — Speed knows sounds.

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