Enhanced Vehicle Acoustics — Because to a blind person a Prius is invisible

Nick Bunkley featured this new company in the August 24, 2008 New York Times, as follows:

Making a Hybrid Heard

Automakers have spent decades trying to make their cars quieter than the competition's. Now two entrepreneurs have formed a business around the notion that some cars are just too quiet.

Everett Meyer and Bryan Bai, two recent Stanford graduates, have formed Enhanced Vehicle Acoustics in Santa Clara, Calif. They soon hope to begin selling a module that can be installed in hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius to create artificial engine noise through speakers mounted near the wheels. Normally when hybrids travel at slow speeds on electric power, they are silent, which safety advocates say poses a danger to pedestrians — particularly blind ones.

A bill introduced in Congress this year and supported by the National Federation for the Blind would set minimum sound levels for hybrids. Regardless, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Bai are optimistic about their invention.

“People who drive Priuses are generally pretty conscientious and aware,” Mr. Meyer told the Stanford News Service, “so it seems like a good beginning market.”

....................

I'm convinced.

You?