Electric cars still have many problems to solve before they can become truly mainstream. The biggest issue is the price, which many consider too high. Another problem is the range, which some say is not long enough, as well as the charging times. Once these problems are finally solved, there will be other issues to deal with, such as engine noise. Maserati is working on this and has decided to recreate the roar of its V8 engine for its future electric cars, including the recently announced GranCabrio Folgore.
Maserati has developed the sound of the V8 engine for its electric cars
“The core driving experience of a Maserati is fundamental, it’s very important,” says Davide Danesin, Head of Engineering. “We’ve put a huge amount of development effort into developing the right sound experience.”
This development process saw the automaker’s engineers analyze the electricity that passes through the inverter in Maserati electric models. This, Danesin says, gave the company’s engineers a good idea of how the car was behaving at any given moment, whether it was accelerating, braking, or simply sitting still at a traffic light.
However, the reproduced sound was not simply the amplified noise of an electric motor, as Danesin says this “electric sound is not very pleasant to listen to” due to its high frequencies. So, instead, the company went for something a bit more flamboyant for its sound: the V8 found in cars like the Ghibli Trofeo.
“We extracted some characteristics from our V8 and essentially defined the Maserati sound fingerprint,” says Danesin. “And we applied this fingerprint to the inverter modulation. We then generated a new sound, which is the Folgore sound of all our cars.” The same auditory signature is reproduced in Maserati’s three electric models, which include the GranCabrio Folgore, GranTurismo Folgore and Grecale Folgore. In each, the generated engine note is reproduced through a maximum of 21 speakers from the Italian hi-fi brand Sonos Faber.