ELVES - Electric Vehicles with Sounds

A Novel Approach to Electric Vehicle Sound Generation

Welcome to the ELVES - Electric Vehicles with Sounds online evaluation. The evaluation consists of six videos of an electric vehicle accelerating from rest up to 15mph past you as an observer. After each clip there are two questions: “How pleasant is the sound?” and “How suitable is the sound?”.

A pleasant sound is one which is likeable and agreeable, it must not cause feelings of panic, disturbance or distress.

A suitable sound
1). Must be attention grabbing
2). Must be easily distinguishable from background noise
3). Must be associable with automotive vehicles
4). Must allow you to determine the speed and the direction of movement of the vehicle

You will then be asked to rank each sound on the scale from 1 to 10, with 1 corresponding to the most unpleasant/unsuitable sound and 10 to the most pleasant/suitable. For this questionnaire we are mainly interested in the qualitative characteristics of the sounds and not their loudness. The optimal loudness for the sounds will be carefully chosen based on the results of our research and further testing. As a result of this, please feel free to adjust your volume for each sound until you feel comfortable.

It is highly recommended to use headphones for the evaluation.