At this year’s South by Southwest, General Motors highlighted an emerging trend in the automotive world: EV sound design. On stage, two of the company’s leaders demonstrated how sound influences the way people perceive and connect with a product. Jay Kapadia, GM’s Creative Sound Director, joined Steve Keller, Sonic Strategy Director at SiriusXM Media’s Studio Resonate, to explore the art and psychology of EV sound design—and how humans experience sound on an emotional level.
The session kicked off with an interactive experiment about the “Bouba vs. Kiki” theory. The audience was shown two abstract figures – one soft and rounded, the other sharp and jagged – and asked to guess which one was named “Bouba” and which was “Kiki.” Almost unanimously, people assigned “Bouba” to the rounded shape and “Kiki” to the jagged one.
These two random shapes, one spiky, one rounded, form the basis of the “Bouba / Kiki” experiment.
Even though the shapes don’t mean anything, audiences seem to know which is Bouba and which is Kiki, illustrating peoples’ predispositions and natural tendency to seek out patterns. They take a similar approach when it comes to sound.
Jay connected this phenomenon to EV sound design by emphasizing that as an EV sound designer, he is tasked with understanding the personality and performance of vehicles to have a matching sound to complete the sensory experience.
Jay and Steve covered a broad range of topics relating to sounds and vehicles.
- A mini concert: Audiences experienced the sounds from various GM EVs, showing two key elements of EV audio engineering: AVAS (Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System) and EVSE (Electric Vehicle Sound Enhancement). AVAS, designed for pedestrian safety, provides external sounds that make EVs more noticeable. Inside the vehicle, EVSE enhances the driving experience, using sound to evoke power, speed, and a deeper connection between driver and machine.
- Sonically aged cheese: Steve shared his work with Cheez-It, playing hip-hop music to cheese as it aged, to see if it would change its molecular structure. Cheesiness aside, he and Jay used this experiment to highlight a deeper point – sound impacts us on a cellular level, whether we realize it or not. With that power comes responsibility, reinforcing why sound should be designed with intention and care.
- Sounds of performance features: Viewers watched a movie car chase scene that that showed the leads using Chevrolet’s Wide Open Watts mode on the Blazer EV SS trim. Jay and his team designed the engagement sound for WOW mode to create an immersive experience that matches the exhilarating feeling of the feature that propels you from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.4 seconds1.
- Sonic healing: Jay talked about how his experience as a yogi and wellness coach shapes his work in creating peaceful sounds. Lifting inspiration from sounds of the sun and the primordial sound of the universe “om,” Jay strives to make GM EVs peaceful sanctuaries for drivers.
As GM expands its EV lineup, sound designers are shaping the future of city streets. As cars get quieter, designers choose how they want EV’s to sound, and this will become a unique part of brands as EV’s proliferate.
