With the massive influx of electric vehicles on the market, some car fans are girding themselves to mourn the loss of the sound of the V8 engine. In some cases, it won’t be a big loss.
In other cases, however, we fear the worst. Take Dodge, for example, the models of which have at their beating hearts the emotion that the sound of a Hellcat engine can evoke.
The automaker is well aware of the conundrum, of course, and is hard at work on it. Stellantis, the parent company that oversees the Dodge, is committed to switching away from gasoline-powered vehicles, even the high-performance ones. The company has even promised us its first electric muscle car in 2024. Now, we learn that indeed, designers there are working on is a hot new sound to go along with these hot new electric models.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares described the coming sound as “shocking”. According to Automotive News Canada, Tavares told participants at a roundtable discussion with the media on Tuesday that “We are creating a sound that you cannot imagine. It's something that is shocking. After they create the sound, they are thinking about how they make the sound louder and more powerful in function of the way you are using the car.”
Now that's interesting. We'll have to see, and hear of course, because we can’t say that the industry has had a roaring successes to date with computer-generated sounds. The results in models like the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT have been frankly disappointing. The best artificial sound we’ve heard was in, of all places, the Toyota Tundra hybrid.
In fact, it's the first time that such a sound has been convincing to us. But if it can be done, it can be done again. So there's reason to hope in Dodge's case.
Stay tuned. Literally.