Prius, now comes as standard with cool spaceship noise!

[jhc 28]

http://priuschat.com/news/toyota-explai ... ius-models

 

Remember about a year ago when we picked on the Japanese market for introducing an optional artificial noisemaker accessory for the Prius? Well, now the joke's on us, my fellow Americans. All 2012 models of the Prius Family will come standard with a required noisemaker, er, "vehicle proximity notification system". On video it sounds like a spaceship, just like the one in the previous video from Japan. In person it sounds much more muted and actually sounds like a louder version of the Prius inverter. You can't even hear the sound from inside the car when you have the windows up, actually.

 

Toyota's notification system (noisemaker) activates at speeds below 15 mph, and uses a combination of high and low pitched tones to make it unique from other ambient sounds. That way you won't run over the guy playing on his cell phone walking with his Starbucks (see the video below). The tones also rise and fall in pitch with the vehicle speed to give pedestrians an idea of whether the Prius coming to hunt them down and kill them toward them is accelerating or decelerating.

 

Any bets on how long it takes 2012 Prius owners to find and cut the wire running to this speaker? Better yet, are there any entrepreneurial Prius owners out there who want to hack into the system to play your own sounds? I'd like a galloping horse, myself.

 

Watch the video to hear the noise... its feckin hilarious

 

[Sphinx 7]

HAHAHAHA...you know what this reminds me of?

 

You know those machines you can attach to bikes that makes a card flick against the back wheel and makes it sound like a motorbike? Little kids who wanted a motorbike instead of a bicycle...

 

Prius...owned by big kids who want a real car instead of a milk float