new delhi the manufacturers of electric cars and other bigger vehicles such as buses and trucks in india would soon have to comply with a new norm of adding a sound alert to these vehicles when they are travelling at speeds of up to 20 kmph to help prevent injuries among pedestrians cyclists and the blindthe evs produce less noise compared to cars powered by combustion engines and can pose risk to the vulnerable road users in mixed traffic conditions and more so when these are travelling at a slower speed globally beyond the speed limit of 2030 kmph the noise produced by tyres of evs and airflow at higher speeds are considered enough to alert other road usersaligning with the global standards the countrys highest automotive standard making entity cmvrtsc has given the go ahead for the final draft of a new automotive industry standard ais requirement for approval of quiet road transport vehicles qrtv with regard to their reduced audibility the road transport ministry has put the proposed standard on its website to seek comments from experts and stakeholderscountries such as the united states and european union have made this norm mandatory india is also witnessing growth in the sale of electric vehicles we are aligning our norms with the international standards if the manufacturers can establish during the testing that their vehicles emit required sound to alert the pedestrians cyclists and other vulnerable road users then they dont have to make any change in the design we expect every firm to comply with the new norms once the standard is notified said a government officialthe proposed norm gives enough options to the manufacturers either to have an automated acoustic vehicle alerting system avas or can be selected by the driverlast week the us regulators scrapped the proposals to allow electric car manufacturers to offer a choice of sounds to warn pedestrians in 2019 the national highway traffic safety administration nhtsa had taken up the suggestion to allow buyers to choose the cars alert sound this provision to provide options of sounds has now been junked