Brand explains new Nissan EV sonic signature, Canto.

ARGUABLY Nissan Leaf owners rival the Teslarati as the biggest noise makers about the benefits of driving electric.

Now, it seems, their pride is sounding out more stridently as well.

Acoustic vehicle alerting systems – in layman’s language, a noise making device to alert pedestrians who have been troubled to hear an EV’s approach – are nothing new. The first generation Leaf incorporates a bit of warble.

However, Nissan has now had to recalibrate a feature so that it produces “a more confident electric driving experience for both drivers and pedestrians around the car.”

This comes with updates applying to the car in the United Kingdom and Europe that are required to make the model fully compliant with the new European market regulations.

Nissan says the AVAS has been specifically designed to transmit more obvious artificially simulated driving sounds – what Nissan calls Canto - alerting road users of the presence of a 100 percent electric vehicle.

Canto will become the sonic signature brand sound for all electrified Nissans. You can hear it in the accompanying video.

Development programme head Marco Fioravanti says his team wanted to make it a unique feature.

“Customer safety is paramount, not only for those behind the wheel, but those surrounding the car as well,” he says.

“As the world becomes more and more electrified, this sound will soon become part of the soundscape of our roads as Nissan’s signature EV sound moving us closer to our goal of a zero-fatality driving experience.

Fioravanti says Canto has been carefully created by sound designers and engineers at Nissan Japan; locally adapted for Europe at Nissan Technical Centre Europe using a spectrum of sonic palettes.

The sound has been purposely composed to ensure it varies in tone and pitch depending on whether the vehicle is accelerating, decelerating, or reversing.

Automatically activated when travelling at speeds up to 30kmh, ‘Canto’ carefully complements its surroundings and is clearly audible, Nissan says, without being “too alarming to pedestrians, residents and passengers.”