Electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are working hard to get their say in today’s competitive alternative vehicle market, and now it looks like the cars themselves are going to have to speak up.

One of the more noticeable traits – maybe because it is not so noticeable – of an EV is that they produce almost no sound. However, due to concerns over safety, companies such as Warwick Manufacturing Group are designing and testing sounds to be added to EVs.

“Electric vehicles and hybrids are alarmingly quiet,” said Warwick’s Paul Jennings. “The concern is that as a road user, as a pedestrian or as a cyclist, we’re just not aware of their presence. And therefore there’s a real danger that there could be an accident.”

Jennings further explained that sounds they are testing range from regular “car” noises to sounds from “The Jetsons.” Once they have a noise, they test them in their car, named Elvin.

Clotaire Rapaille, consultant for the automotive industry, thought this idea sounded like music to her ears.

“Think of all the possibilities that are suddenly open,” she said. “We have different ring tones for different cell phones; we can have different sounds for different kinds of cars.”

While safety is important, noise emissions shouldn’t be the only thing that electric vehicles are worried about. In an article published on the American Fuel Facts blog, we describe how EVs may be worse for the environment than gasoline vehicles when energy-sapping batteries are factored into the equation.

Zero-noise and zero-emissions both sound nice, but it looks like neither may turn out to be in our future.