CUPRA – Electric Vehicle Engine Sound (AVAS)

Everyone is talking about electric mobility. The new engines mean less noise.

But also a 35% increase in pedestrian accidents. That’s why an “Acoustic

Vehicle Alerting System” (AVAS), has been introduced.

The purposely designed driving sound makes near silent electric cars sonically recognizable.

When developing the AVAS for CUPRA, our sound design was based on three pillars: environment, audibility, and brand representation.

We have a responsibility for our environment and must exploit the possibility of reducing noise on the streets. But we still have to ensure safety for pedestrians. So, frequency bands had to be taken into account to optimize audibility.

And of course, the AVAS is also an opportunity to highlight a brand and its unique positioning. To create such an audio experience for CUPRA, we studied the interior design materials and brand colours like copper, wood, carbon fibre and translated them into sound. These sounds are our CUPRA AVAS ingredients. We then put these in motion!

This project has been awarded with the:

– Transform Award Asia 2021

– International Sound Award 2022: Better Sound

Client: CUPRA, Barcelona

Audio Branding Agency: why do birds, Berlin

More information on why do birds at: whydobirds.de/en