One of the most appealing part of performance cars is the sound their exhaust makes. It’s part of the reason sport car manufacturers are going for hybrid system instead of all electric and even those that are fully electric have a sound system to emulate the sound.
The best place to enjoy the engine notes is from outside the car. Ford knows this and has come up with a solution for the driver to experience engine rev sounds from outside the car via remote control system.
According to a patent submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the system starts with a user-initiated command using a remote control from inside or outside the vehicle. In response to that input, the engine should rev to a selected peak speed, revving profile, and/or revving pattern. The exhaust tuning can also be adjusted to produce the desired engine revving sound while the vehicle is idling or even when the vehicle is off.
“In this way, the engine may be revved according to parameters selected by the user at various distances from the vehicle,” the patent says.
The documentation continues to show Ford vision of implementing the same on electric cars. “Furthermore, as a popularity of electric vehicles rises, including electric performance vehicles, the electric vehicles do not have an engine to provide engine revving sounds. As such, an attractiveness of the electric vehicle to a performance vehicle enthusiast may be decreased, hampering a transition to less fossil fuel-reliant vehicles.”
To solve this, “engine revving sound may be emitted through a sound system of the vehicle,” which can be done without demanding an additional component to the EV.
The patent was filed last November 3, 2020, but just got published recently. If Ford ends up implementing such a system, it would be more than a cool party trick.