The silence of an electric car is one of its greatest appeals — until you're the pedestrian who didn't hear it coming.
At low speeds, an EV is nearly silent. No engine idling, no exhaust note, no mechanical warning. For the driver, that's luxury. For a pedestrian — especially someone who relies on sound to judge traffic — it's a genuine gap in electric car safety. And it's a problem the industry has been solving with something you rarely think about: a sound.
Here's how electric cars are being made "heard", why the design is harder than it sounds, and what it means for everyone who shares the road with electric cars in Australia.
1. The problem with silence
For over a century, humans have used sound to judge traffic. We hear a car before we see it — around a corner, behind us, through traffic noise. Our brains process the engine note, the tyre hum and the distance cues without thinking.
An electric car at low speed removes the biggest part of that audio information. There's no engine note to announce its approach. Studies in several countries have found that pedestrians are less likely to notice a quiet electric car approaching at walking speed than a conventional one. For blind or low-vision pedestrians — who depend almost entirely on sound — that difference is life-changing.
The silence that feels premium inside the cabin is, outside the car, an information gap.
2. Why speed is the key factor
This is where engineering gets precise. The risk isn't uniform across all speeds — it's concentrated at low speed.
At walking and city speeds, an EV produces very little sound. The tyres barely hum, the wind is barely there, and the motor is nearly silent. That's the danger zone: car parks, shopping centres, school zones, residential streets.
Above roughly 20–25 km/h, physics changes. Tyre noise and wind noise rise naturally, and the car becomes audible without any help. That's why AVAS — the acoustic vehicle alert system — is designed around the low-speed range: it's not needed at speed, and it's essential below it.
3. AVAS: an engineered sound, not a horn
You might think the solution is simple: bolt on a speaker and be done. It's not, and the reasons are worth understanding.
Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS) is a system designed to make an EV identifiable — to say "a vehicle is approaching" — without sounding like an alarm. The engineering requirements are demanding:
Audible in the right range. The sound must be clearly detectable at low speeds, in city noise, from different directions.
Proportionate. It has to warn without startling — strong enough to notice, gentle enough not to alarm.
Speed-sensitive. The sound typically changes with speed, signalling approach and departure.
Regulated. In many markets, regulations now require new electric car models to carry an AVAS, with defined sound levels and speed ranges.
And it has to do all of this without adding noise pollution — designed to reach pedestrians, not to shout at the neighbourhood.
4. The sound design challenge: making a car "sound right"
Behind the scenes, designing an AVAS sound is a real engineering discipline — a niche of electric car technology that most people never see. Engineers balance frequency, loudness and character — a sound that's too high-pitched disappears into traffic noise; too low, and it's hard to locate. It must be directional enough that pedestrians can tell where it's coming from.
There's a hidden complication too: the same sound that projects outside the car can leak back inside. The external AVAS sound and the cabin's acoustic design are one system — which is why NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshness) engineering and AVAS design are handled together, not separately.
And increasingly, the AVAS sound is a brand decision. As engine notes disappear, the pedestrian warning tone becomes one of the few sounds a car makes by design. It's a chance to sound calm, modern, distinctive — a small piece of brand identity, engineered for safety.
5. What it means for pedestrians
The practical effect of good AVAS design is a safer, more inclusive streetscape:
Blind and low-vision pedestrians regain the audio information they need to cross roads and move through car parks confidently.
All pedestrians get an earlier, clearer warning of a vehicle approaching at low speed — in busy car parks, near schools, in laneways.
Drivers get the same benefit in reverse: a car that's noticed is less likely to surprise someone.
This isn't about making EVs loud. It's about making them present — audible enough to be safely shared, while keeping calm. That makes them enjoyable.
6. XPENG: safety, engineered into the sound
XPENG builds this thinking into its Australian models. The NEW G6 and X9 carry an acoustic vehicle alert system as standard — a low-speed sound designed to make the car clearly identifiable to pedestrians. It matters most in urban environments where quiet EVs are most common.
The sound engineering is part of a broader approach: the external alert system and the cabin's acoustic treatment are designed together, so the warning reaches the street without disturbing the quiet inside. Safety outside, calm inside — engineered as one system.
Conclusion
Electric cars are quiet because electric drive is better in almost every way — cleaner, smoother, more efficient. But silence has a cost outside the cabin, and the industry's answer is design: a sound that's engineered, regulated and increasingly part of a brand's identity.
AVAS isn't a compromise on the EV experience. It's how a quieter technology shares the road safely with people who may never see it coming. The best electric cars are quiet when they need to be — and heard when they have to be.
Ready to see safety designed into every detail? Book a test drive with XPENG — one of Australia's leading Chinese EV brands — and experience the NEW G6 or X9. Ask us how the pedestrian alert system works in the real world.
Note: AVAS requirements and sound characteristics vary by market and regulation. Feature availability varies by model and specification.
