Horse sense from electric car designer: clip-clop sounds announce vehicle is coming
Posted Jan 26th 2007 4:37PM by Mike Magda
Filed under: Etc., EV/Plug-in
Remember the
post a few months ago about blind pedestrians concerned over the silent running of electric vehicles and hybrids. It's a significant issue for the blind community who fear losing mobility if they can't hear a vehicle passing through an intersection or especially in a parking lot where motorists don't always follow prescribed traffic patterns.
Yoshio Takaoka has built a electric 2-seater vehicle called the Girasole that has a clip-clop sound of horse hooves hitting the pavement to alert pedestrians.
The car costs about $18,000 and can travel nearly 75 miles on a full charge. Top speed is only 41 mph, meaning that if it came to the U.S. it would likely be limited to NEV status.
Related:
[Source: Reuters Life! via extremetech.com]
Tags: blind electric car, BlindElectricCar, electric car silent, electric car sounds, ElectricCarSilent, ElectricCarSounds
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