Lotus Develops Hybrid Hi-Fi

by Edward Niedermeyer

August 5th, 2008 11:33 AM

Inspired by the plight of blind and partially sighted pedestrians fearing hybrids running silently in EV mode, Lotus is set to replace the silent whoosh of a Prius' EV mode with some sort of engine noise. So how does Lotus' "Safe and Sound" system sound? In the videos provided by Lotus, it sounds a lot like a healthy four-banger. Hethel's engineers claim you could make your Prius sound like it's packing a desmo-head 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR engine or a breathed-on Chevy small block. Pity the poor gangsters of Agrestic who will lose their drive-by shooting advantages if Nancy Botwin upgrades her Prius with the Lotus system.

Click here for Lotus press release

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4 of 13 comments

Blunozer on Aug 05, 2008

From now on, I will consider the squeal emmited from my old Subaru's brakes and semi-worn drive belts as a "Lotus inspired safety feature"!

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Areitu on Aug 05, 2008

How much research do you need to play sound out of the front of a car?

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Strippo on Aug 05, 2008
How much research do you need to play sound out of the front of a car? Do you have any idea how much money it took for Bose to figure out just how to make $400 worth of sound come out of a CD player with two speakers? The price has never come down, either, after more than 50 years. That ought to tell you something right there.

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Ghillie on Aug 06, 2008
# Strippo : August 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pm But as a driver I always assume that pedestrians are going to walk out in front of me, so it wouldn’t benefit me or them much at all to warn blind drivers that I’m coming. I'd sure want to give them blind drivers plenty of warning that I'm coming :)

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