If you’ve ever driven an electric car or have been in close proximity to one in a parking lot, you’ve probably heard a strange noise emitting from under the hood or bumper. That’s because, as of September 2019, EVs are required by law in the U.S. to emit an audible noise when traveling at speeds up to 19 mph to alert pedestrians of their presence, per Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 141.
Other than tire noise, EVs are usually totally silent on the outside, since they don’t have the noise of thousands of little explosions from an internal combustion engine coming from an exhaust. So it’d make sense for an otherwise quiet two-ton-plus battering ram to make a noise to alert the people around it of its presence.
The NHTSA doesn’t specify the type of sound EVs have to make, though, which has led to some fascinating noises, some of which you probably wouldn’t expect from a car without an engine. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N’s fake turbo four-cylinder noises and the Dodge Charger Daytona’s Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, which replicates the sound of a naturally aspirated V8, come to mind.
Most carmakers go in a different direction for their EVs, though, electing to play futuristic hums through the external speakers to alert pedestrians. Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and many others are well known for this. Nissan, with its new Leaf crossover, takes these noises to a totally different, much more haunting place.
This Sound Makes Me Uncomfortable
While rotting my brain on TikTok, I came across this video of a new Nissan Leaf reversing. Normally, seeing a car reverse through a parking garage isn’t very interesting. But if you listen with sound, you’ll understand why I’m sharing it here.
@evercarsco 2026 Nissan LEAF Reverse Sound ???? #ev #nissan #NissanLEAF #EV #CarSound ♬ original sound – Ever Cars
Like the other brands mentioned above, Nissan employs a sort of futuristic high-pitched hum for its reversing noise. But it sounds far more… sinister than any other car I’ve heard before, for two main reasons. The first is the tone itself. It reminds me of something you’d hear in the background of a sci-fi horror movie or video game. The second is the pulsing delivery of the sound. It’s an on-off noise rather than a continuous delivery, making it feel like a church chorus you’d hear when you’re about to face a boss in a Dark Souls game.
I could imagine it being overlaid in that scene from the 2013 feature film Prometheus, where the astronaut-explorers are marching into the alien-made superstructure they just discovered for the first time. Or in the video game Halo 3, when you’re about to face off with the Flood, a parasitic alien life form that turns the dead bodies of your allies into zombified enemy corpses. My colleague Jason had another apt suggestion:
If I heard that, I would certainly assume the latter, Jason.
Nissan Was Nice Enough To Explain It To Me
Rather than just assume the Leaf’s engineers are trying to traumatize pedestrians with every gearshift into reverse, I reached out to the brand to see if it could tell me why, exactly, the Leaf’s backup sound is so unsettling. A representative gave me a nice, detailed response that actually sounds pretty logical:
The sound you’re hearing is part of the LEAF’s Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians (VSP) system, required because EVs are very quiet at low speeds. It uses a distinctive, intermittent tone in reverse to make the car’s direction immediately clear and ensure it’s easily noticed by pedestrians, including those with visual impairments. The intermittent pattern is intentional — it’s more attention grabbing than a constant tone and helps differentiate reversing from low speed forward motion, which uses a continuous sound.
The point of a reverse noise is to be noticed, not appreciated. And if there’s one thing this scary backup sound does, with its underworld tone and perfectly cinematic pulses, it’s get noticed (by me, anyway). While I hope I never have to hear it in real life, I have no choice but to commend Nissan’s engineers for their ability to keep pedestrians on their toes, and possibly their hair on end.
Top graphic images: Ever Cars/TikTok; MGM/Amblin
I mean, they could have just gone for “nails on a chalkboard”.
I like it. I wish all EVs offered a Horror Mode option for their warning sounds.
I also wonder if the new Leaf still has the ability to turn off all interior and exterior lights while the car is in motion? My 1G Leaf could go completely dark with the press of a few buttons. Combining that with a reverse alert that sounds like the mournful wail of a disembodied wandering soul would make this a great vehicle for pranking people. I’d pay extra for that.
“The 2026 Nissan Leaf. Soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. Coming soon.”
I want the Top Gun Anthem to play when I drive around, and the seagulls from Finding Nemo when I back up.
Having not seen the 2026 Leaf, my very first thought was that it has gotten taller and fat. It’s making the new Prius look good. Instead of turning a new Leaf on design, they fell for the dried up idea of a CUV/ovoid shape. The ground is already covered with those.
The Leaf’s always been a rolling ellipse, and Nissan is (I think?) in the business of selling vehicles, so went with what’s selling. Reviews are very good so far so it might be a hit.
As for “making the new Prius look good,” I think that’s the first comment I’ve ever read that’s insinuating the current model doesn’t look good.
The old Leaf was never a looker with its long nose, and the original was downright ugly. I’m all for the mini-Ariya looks if it helps it sell better, and it has more cargo space to boot.
A sound like that is really asking for someone to die. Probably the driver, for making that horrible noise which scared the bystanders to the core.
I wonder if you could hack it to play portions of Sir Mix a Lot’s Baby Got Back. “Buh buh buh bah buh buh buh bah I LIKE BIG BUTTS…”
Or in the case of a Cybertruck:
“Oh, my, god. Becky, look at this butt.
It is so big. It looks like a total prostitute, ‘kay?
I mean, this butt, is just so big.
I can’t believe it’s just so round, it’s like,
out there, I mean – gross. Look!”
This thing is worse than described. As I tried to listen to it my volume slider got stuck at 24, and I had to reinstall my sound card and reboot several times to revive it. Booo!
They’ve captured the sound of one of their CVT’s grenading, perfectly! 🙂
Is there any way y’all could include hosted videos, images, and sounds rather than deeplinks that want me to download some shitty app to listen to 13 seconds or whatever of a car backing up?
Embeds have never worked for me, even on my browsers that aren’t configured for aggressive ad and tracker blocking.
Even when autopian is whitelisted, every embedded media never shows for me. It’s except the autopian videos.
Hmmm…it worked fine for me. Maybe they changed it since you posted this.
I would guess the reverb of a parking garage makes that sound much worse than it normally would?
Yes, absolutely. It would sound completely different in the open air. The garage is putting a super thick reverb on it, just like horror movies do. It’s the it’s a cheap movie shortcut for “voices from beyond,” and if you add some tape delay to the source, it serves as a”hallucinating,” too.
I think it’s E flat and E natural, with a bit of D natural coming in late on each pulse. Half step clusters are disquieting always, but without the reverberation it’s probably more like you cooked something with a lot of pepper but you forgot the salt.
Perfect description of what a lot of us feel but can’t really explain!
That’s low key awesome – because I’m hip with the kids’ slang.
That’s low key awesome – because the pitch is toward the tenor instead of soprano.
That’s Loki awesome – because the god of chaos would definitely approve.
I’m not happy about it, but take your star.
You say that like prius has a lock on buying the cheapest tires known to man come 30k miles or so. Stupid things sound like a lifted truck even on pure electric.
Who needs a warning system when they enter thier second life screaming their song as they move.
Goodbye Goodyear, hello Sentury.
I like how the representative focuses on the intermittent part. As if that’s what’s novel about it.
I’m going to assume that Nissan Leafs (Leaves?) are haunted, and are being manufactured on a Native American burial ground. No real other explanation for this.
Nissan manufactures their “VSP” module in Pet Sematary?
I would bet they started production in Maine after someone took their 2004 Sentra 4 speed automatic, buried it, and the next day the JATCO CVT emerged.
Now THAT is a horror story
The EV sound I hear as a basic EV goes by is “AHHHHHHH”…. “IIII AMMMM LEVITATING” “”AAAAHHHHH””.
As to this car, what’s wrong with using some variation of constant beeps like big trucks do when they reverse? Seems fairly universally understood what that sound means. This Leaf sound isn’t carlike at all.
We don’t have many electric vehicles in the sticks where I live. I think I’ve heard exactly one backing out of a parking spot at the grocery store.
I put a 50A / 240V service into my garage last year. I’ve been thinking I might be interested in a Slate pickup once my regular-cab, 5-speed, crank-window pickup finally succumbs to cancer and something structurally collapses.
If I do find a small electric pickup, and it comes with one of those annoying noise makers, I’ll probably just find a way to disable it if it annoys me too much. Or at least turn the volume down on it.
TBH most of them are pretty innocuous. The only reason I know my car (a Polestar 2) ‘chirps’ in reverse is because one time when reversing into a space I had the window down. It’s inaudible from inside. Same with the ‘hum’.
The Slate is looking really great, a really interesting concept! If I was looking for a work truck I’d be going down that road too.
If you’ve got the facilities for home charging, then EVs can save you an absolute fortune on fuel over time. We don’t, as we live in London and street park, but even then running costs are pretty low compared to fuelling any 400hp petrol car would be!
It is indeed a touch creepy, but I’ll take a few minutes of “downstairs neighbor hasn’t beaten Metaphor ReFantazio yet” over the piercing shrieks of “garbage truck driver taking a call and doesn’t care he’s in reverse”.
The gates of hell open up when you go in reverse. Better than the aftermarket ones , that were available in the 70’s that would play classical music, though.
The forward noises that some EVs make are also hauntingly weird.
Okay, if I ever get an EV I want it to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons while it’s running.
Make mine Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”
Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit….
If you want haunting, nothing beats Echoes by Pink Floyd
Scary in the middle. I love that whole song. Also very cool is how the screaming <whatevers> sound is made. It isn’t synth.
I’m so glad my Volt was built prior to this strange era of angellic choirs and spooky ghost noises. It’s low speed indicator sounds like a lower pitched version of TV static.
Yeah you described that smug sound well, angelic choir, indeed.
I wonder what happens when the rear speaker breaks.
Instead of White Noise how about Cream doing In A White Room.
What was insufficient with adding a beeping (or piano chord sound, good on you Ford!) to whatever the normal low speed sound is going forward? Instant recognition that something is backing up as ingrained into us by every commerce truck on the past 20 years. FIFY.
I’m not sure why they don’t go full skeumorphic and use a gear-whine noise.
I would drive everywhere in reverse
Just swap the .wav files, easy-peasy
Five Gears in Reverse
https://youtu.be/TqT_izKjCtU?si=RTtP_7TTCW_L-J0G
If the intent is to get the attention of pedestrians and get them to move out of range – it would seem to be doing its job.
It reminds me of the Cylon whirring sound, as the red light goes back and forth, as its plotting your demise.
Somebody needs the Ghostbusters up in that Nissan Leaf!