Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130318/AUTO01/303180438/Automakers-concerned-NHTSA-s-quiet-cars-rule-too-loud?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE I have no sympathy. This law was signed in January 2011 thanks to a lame-duck Congress with the collusion of the "American Automotive Alliance". These manufactures 'sat on their hands' and let the anti-hybrid crowd put one over on them. They were played for fools and now we are about to start a great experiment. Personally, I suspect these noise generators will lead to more risky behavior than the original cars. The reason is drivers will believe 'the pedestrian will hear my car so I don't have to be so vigilant.' The right answer is auto based, accident avoidance BUT that ship has sailed. We are stuck with a dumb law and accident avoidance systems are only sold with $8,000 worth of useless 'eye-candy.' Bob Wilson
concur with bob, it's all very unfortunate and politics as usual. nhtsa is about as capable as the tsa.
What might have been: Toyota could have announced that "Accident Avoidance" will be offered for all trim levels - this would have dropped the price from just under $10,000 to $2,000 or less. Furthermore, Toyota will offer discounted insurance, at least $500/year, for cars with "Accident Avoidance" while under warranty. Within five years, "Accident Avoidance" will be standard on all hybrids. Had Toyota taken an aggressive approach pushing "Accident Avoidance" in their hybrids, it would have gutted the advocates of 'noise generators.' In any objective test, accident avoidance totally defeats the noisy machine. Even the biased statisticians who inflated the claims of a hazard would have faced a moral and professional challenge. More importantly, it would have bootstrapped this technology and given the Prius an unfair, competitive safety advantage over all other vehicles. Bob Wilson
