14 Mar 10th International Styrian Noise, Vibration & Harshness Congress

The European Automotive Noise Conference

Sustainability, climate change and economic transformation are pushing the application of electric traction for ground vehicles.

Although the electric and hybrid vehicle market is still at a relatively early stage of development, it is soon expected to substantially transform industries and communities and is anticipated to drastically reshape the vehicle NVH scenario as we have known it. The challenges and opportunities associated with this new NVH scenario are the main theme of the ISNVH 2018 Congress.
The coming years will be characterized by a rapidly growing market share of hybrid vehicles combining traditional IC-engine based technology with electric traction.

From an acoustics point of view these vehicles are characterised by an almost infinite number of possible operational modes combining electric and conventional traction, which can result in unexpected and sometimes confusing acoustical feedbacks. Transient vibration problems are no longer restricted to starting and stopping, but are frequent events during normal traffic operation. The electric motors, power electronics and gearboxes introduce prominent high frequency tonal components. Brand sound must be re-invented to a certain extent and last but not least a totally different scenario of acoustic masking effects is putting new emphasis on conventionally “harmless” sources.