The roar of a performance car represents an emotional component that could disappear forever with the transition to the electric car. However, the car manufacturers, in order not to disappoint the more nostalgic public, have decided to design a artificial rhombus intended for their flagship models. This is the case ofAbarth 500efor which the manufacturer has invested considerable resources in creating the right sound (see the video below). This was communicated by the Italian company itself, which explains the details of the development process.
the rumble ofAbarth 500e it was developed by a dedicated team of sound engineers in collaboration with the Sound Design Studio at the NVH (Noise Vibration and Harshness) department of Stellantis in Italy, the same responsible for the Record Monza exhaust used on internal combustion engine Abarths. Overall, the design lasted about two years, with 6 months of continuous work, requiring more than 6,000 hours between analysis and creation of the perfect sound for each phase of the driving experience with the involvement of a team of experts. The technical director followed the management phase of the project, with the NVH specialists who instead dedicated themselves to improvement, focusing on both the creative and the technological part of the process.
Part of the tests and sound studies were performed in a semi-anechoic chamber, a room specially designed to be isolated from its surroundings in order to make reliable noise measurements. Thus it was possible to recreate an acoustically reflective surface, such as a road. To obtain a perfect performance and as close as possible to the original one, the current sound of the petrol engine of the Abarth was recorded during all the different driving phases: acceleration, deceleration, braking and fast cornering. The recordings were then analyzed to extract all the distinctive frequencies of the Abarth, in order to create a new sound in a virtual matrix enriched by additional tones.
Subsequently the matrix was tested in the studio and on the static car through various configurations in order to obtain the best result. A crucial point was the balancing of the sound generator so as to provide the driver with the most pleasant driving experience even at high speeds, while respecting the homologation constraints for noise pollution and guaranteeing a realistic sound. This made it possible to “synchronize” the intensity of the sound in relation to driving conditions and the speed of the car (the sound is processed through the external rear speaker). For example, when theAbarth 500e is stopped the sound generator replicates the sound of the Record Monza exhaust at idle.