While Kia’s first dedicated electric vehicle, the EV6, continues getting prizes around the world, the South Korean carmaker is investigating a mysterious high frequency that bother passengers while driving at low speed.
According to KBS TV news channel, Kia said that it was aware of the complaint of some customers and was investigating the cause of this annoying high-frequency noise while driving.
The process to heard that sound is simple. An EV6 vehicle that is traveling at 30 km/h and then stops to wait for a red signal and as the car slows down to less than 10 km/h, a sudden ‘beep’ is heard.
One of the EV6 drivers, Mr. Moon Seong-Rok/ told to the interviewer: “It lingers in my ear and I can hear the sound made by the car even in my daily life, as if I have a little tinnitus…”
Another driver, Lee Sang-seop said that music is always on in his car because of the high-frequency noise. “I put music on the USB and plug it in and turn on the volume higher than that. Then that cancels out.”
You can heard the sound inside the EV6 in different test made by KBS news in the video above.
We will explain how the sound expert tested it. Inside the car and when driving at a speed of 10 km/h or less, a sound is detected for each frequency. Suddenly, a bar graph near 6,000 Hz pops up and then a high-frequency sound begins to be heard for over 3 seconds.
According to Kim Do-heom, Professor of Acoustic Engineering at Daelim University says that usually humans can perceive sounds between 4,000 and 17,000 hertz as high frequencies. So a sound of 6,000 hertz is a range that anyone can hear well.
“It is a noise of about 6.3 kilohertz, which is very sensitive to the human ear… It is a small sound in terms of the original sound level, but the low frequency is high because the ambient noise is so low in a car without an internal combustion engine.” He added.
What do you think? Will you guys be annoyed by a sound like that?
