'Too quiet' electric and hybrid cars create headache for US regulators

US regulators are grappling with new rules for electric and hybrid cars that are too quiet, leading to fears of collisions with cyclists and sight-impaired pedestrians unless the vehicles are fitted with artificial noise-making systems.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates the odds of a hybrid vehicle being involved in a pedestrian crash are 19% higher compared with a gasoline-powered vehicle.

The car safety regulator has said that if the proposal were implemented there would be 2,800 fewer pedestrian and bicyclist injuries annually. There are about 125,000 such accidents each year.

But the regulators have been forced to delay until at least March 2016 a government plan, in the works since 2013, to require “quiet cars” – vehicles that operate at low speeds without a gasoline engine running – to add new audio alerts at low speeds.

The proposed rules would require automakers like Tesla, General Motors, Ford and Toyota to add automatic audio alerts to electric and hybrid vehicles traveling at 18 miles per hour or less.

This would apply to hybrid and electric cars, SUVs, trucks, buses and motorcycles. Advocates for the blind have pushed for the rules.

Automakers have raised concerns about the alerts, saying they are too loud and too complicated. They also want them required only at lower speeds.

Under a 2010 law passed by Congress the NHTSA was supposed to finalize the regulations by January 2014. Automakers will get a minimum of 18 months from the time the rules are finalized before they must begin adding the alerts.

NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind said in July the regulation would be finalized by November – a timetable the agency says in a new government document that it will not be able to meet.

The Transportation Department, in explaining the latest delay, said in a document posted on its website that “additional coordination is necessary”. NHTSA declined to elaborate on Tuesday.

NHTSA in 2013 said it expected the rules would cost the auto industry about $23m in the first year because automakers would need to add an external waterproof speaker to comply.

With Reuters