Ways to give an EV engine sound, compared

There are five ways to put combustion noise in an electric car: a browser page driven by GPS, a phone app, an app plus an OBD dongle, an aftermarket sound box wired in, or whatever the manufacturer built. They differ in cost, in how far the sound lags the pedal, and in whether anyone outside hears it.

Where the sound comes from

The real split is what the system knows about the car. Everything else follows from it.

GPS knows one number: how fast you are moving. Acceleration has to be derived from how that number changes, and throttle from acceleration. That is enough to drive a convincing gearbox and a convincing engine, and it is what this site does. What it cannot know is that you have pressed the pedal, only that you have started moving.

An OBD dongle reads the car’s own diagnostic bus, so on a vehicle that reports pedal position it gets that directly rather than inferring it. That is a genuine advantage, and it costs a piece of hardware left in the port and a pairing step every time you drive.

A sound box is a different category. It is an amplifier and a speaker, often mounted near the exhaust, so it is the only option on this list that makes noise for anyone standing outside the car. If that is what you want, nothing on a screen will do it.

Where EV·ENGINE loses

A comparison that says one option wins everything is not a comparison. These are the places this site is the wrong answer, and none of them are fixable from a browser.

• The note lags the pedal. GPS reports a fix about once a second, so under hard acceleration the sound arrives a moment behind the push. An OBD or factory system does not have this problem.
• Nobody outside hears it. It plays through the car’s speakers. If you want the car to be audible from the pavement, you want a sound box.
• There is no pedal signal. Throttle is inferred from acceleration, so lifting off on a downhill and lifting off on the flat read the same way.
• It needs the screen. Browsers suspend audio for a hidden tab, so the page has to stay open and visible.
• No haptics, no exhaust valve, no drivetrain feel. It is sound. That is the whole product.

Where it wins

• Nothing to buy and nothing to install. It is a web page. Open it, allow location, press ignition. See the pricing file if you want that in a machine-readable form: the answer is zero.
• Nothing plugged into the car. No dongle in the diagnostic port, no wiring, no access to the car’s systems at all.
• It runs on the car’s own screen. Built for the centre display in a Tesla, so the phone stays in your pocket. See running it in a Tesla.
• Twenty machines rather than one. A V12, a diesel, a jet turbine and a steam locomotive, each with a clip you can play before you drive. See all twenty.
• Nothing leaves the browser. Your position is read, converted to a speed and discarded. See privacy.

Which to choose

If you want to hear an engine from the driver’s seat and spend nothing, a browser page on GPS is the whole job. If the lag bothers you and your car reports pedal position, an OBD dongle is the upgrade. If you want the car to be heard from outside, buy a sound box and have it fitted, because no software can do that. If your car already has a sound mode you like, use it.

This page compares approaches rather than named products, because prices and feature lists change and a comparison that is out of date is worse than none. The structural differences above do not change.