Some drivers take issue with their EVs being too silent. Should you find yourself among such drivers, consider this device by Borla to lend your quiet car a fairly convincing V8 soundtrack.
The thing seen installed on a Ford Mustang Mach-E here is called APSS, which stands for ‘Active Performance Sound System’. Aside from a couple of external speakers, it includes a 300W amp and a smart controller that ensures sound variation based on parameters such as movement speed, accelerating or braking, equivalent RPM counts and so on. Based on the videos, it does pull off a rather plausible imitation.
The current version of the software supports four sound schemes: Ford Mustang GT, Ford Mustang GT500, Chevrolet C8, and Dodge SRT 392. In the future, Borla plans to support custom sounds and scheme editing.
If fake exhaust sounds aren’t your cup of tea, you are far from alone. Borla itself admits that there are many critics of the technology and pleasing them all can be tough. Still, in urban areas where pedestrians are often absorbed in their phones and mostly rely on sound to detect approaching cars, it can be a life-saver.