Hasta La Ideas

We first reported on what we’re calling “vroom tones”—artificial noises that electric cars are required to generate for safety reasons—back in ’09 and ’10, and it hasn’t turned out the way we wanted. What we hoped was that e-car owners would be able to download different sounds in the manner of a ringtone, leading would-be sellers to come up with some truly creative vehicle noises.

Instead Ford has picked four engine sounds for their new Focus and posted them on Facebook, asking you social-network-using whippersnappers to rate which ones you like. The sounds are so disappointing I won’t embed them here, but you can hear them at the link above. They sound like airplanes dithering around on the runway waiting for a take-off slot; they might as well add a fifth one of a guy saying “BOR-ring” in a singsongy voice.

Am I the only one that wants to hear an electric car that sounds like this, below?

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