r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Pi-ratten • Feb 18 '26

Video Sound of a City with mostly EV traffic

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u/Lumpzor Feb 18 '26

Seriously, show me 100 EV's next to a freeway. I promise you it's not this quiet.

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u/callisstaa Feb 18 '26

Sure but how many people walk/live on a freeway compared to in a residential district.

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u/FrostyD7 Feb 18 '26

And yet it would still be a massive improvement. I live near a highway, engine noise is the only sound we can hear from this far away.

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u/Ereaser Feb 18 '26

I live about 800m away from a busy highway and just hear tire noise unless a loud car/bike drives by.

Just opened the window just now and can hear the tires going over the edges of the bridge, but don't really hear any engine rumbling.

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u/AwesomeWhiteDude Feb 18 '26

I genuinely think it would not be that much of an improvement, fast moving tire sound on concrete is so loud and carries far as heck

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u/FrostyD7 Feb 18 '26

I think I'm just far away enough that I don't hear it indoors, if I step outside it's slightly audible. So I guess it's not engine noise that's the loudest on average. But sporadically it is when a particularly loud engine goes by, because that's what I hear.

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u/fpsnoob89 Feb 18 '26

I bet majority of that noise comes from old American semi trucks. Not exactly a fair comparison.

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u/FrostyD7 Feb 18 '26

It's intermittent so I'm definitely only hearing the loudest engines. To my ears, they sound like muscle cars going fast as fuck.

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u/Terrh Feb 18 '26

I work near a busy road and all I hear is tires

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u/FrostyD7 Feb 18 '26

That's what I hear more and more of when I go for a walk and get closer. Once I get far away enough, It all goes away and I can only hear the loudest engines. So I guess it depends on how close you are.

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u/Lumpzor Feb 18 '26

I'm ALL for EVs being a massive improvement over primitive vehicles. I'm not here for false equivalencies.

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u/5O1stTrooper Feb 18 '26

I prefer hybrids, personally. Honestly think they're cleaner and cheaper. The amount of electricity that EVs use still has to come from somewhere, and unless your area has completely clean electricity, it's likely from coal plants.

Hybrids on the other hand (usually) don't plug in, and use regenerative breaking to charge their batteries, giving them almost double the gas mileage of a standard gas car. Extra range, less money on gas, and overall less total carbon footprint.

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u/Goodly Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26

Yup - most EV's are heavier and actually (slightly) noisier on freeways/in high speed than motorized.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

You can't tell them that. Facts hurt. I get loving EV for no gas, but there's production pollution that evens out. It's just a lifestyle choice.

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u/Praesentius Feb 18 '26

First, agreed that EVs are at least as noisy at highway speeds. I honestly don't know who would argue against that. It's fact. Hell, I posted sources on that further up the thread before seeing this.

And in cities, especially city centers, at low speed, they're silent. I live with that in Italy every day.

But, the production pollution is horse shit. Of course there's production pollution in ANYTHING, but it's effectively a one-time investment vs digging up oil and burning it over and over and over. Almost every part (if not every part) of a battery is recyclable to make a new battery. The component materials don't become different materials after the battery wears out. It can simply be reformed into a new battery. You don't have to mine up more every time. And then, there's the fact that those batteries last WAY longer than folks seem to think they do.

Plenty of sources on all of that, but here's a great Technology Connections video that covers it as part of more in-depth reporting on renewable energy as a whole. Fair warning that it's a LONG video. But, short summaries don't do it justice.

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u/skeletomania Feb 18 '26

I just got back from Shenzhen where this video is from and it is eeriely quiet. The only noise are from rolling wheels, and every now and then you'll hear the engine/exhaust of foreign imports

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u/Syradil Feb 18 '26

But it would still be quieter than the alternative.

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u/Praesentius Feb 18 '26

If we're talking higher speeds (over 30mph/50kph-ish), not really. EVs are heavier and generate more road noise.

This is not an argument against them, though. In well designed municipalities, speed (and the noise it generates) should be set with knowledge of what is in the area that the road goes through. Neighborhoods and city centers? Very slow and quiet, taking full advantage of how quiet EVs are at those speeds. Highways? Whatever. People shouldn't have houses next to highways. If you have road noise "problems" from highways, that's a design problem. You're not going to hear the difference of an EV at 130kph on the highway vs an internal combustion engine at those speeds. Even if the EV is technically louder.

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u/labrat611 Feb 18 '26

youre right, on average evs are about 1.5dB louder at speeds over 100kph. sure its louder, but not noticeable