Exploring the Potential of Virtual Environment for Electric Vehicle: Study Case and Sound Quality Performance

The consequent growth in the production and deployment of electric vehicles (EV), has urged a reassessment of the interior sound experience for these vehicles. To address the issue, this research employs a virtual environment (VE) with a circular array of eight loudspeakers and visual projection to recreate the soundscape of the EV cabin. The validity of the simulator is evaluated by respondents both in the real cabin and VE. Two stimuli were reproduced in VE: 1. Stimuli with the same sound pressure level (SPL) as the cabin, 2. Stimuli's SPL is lowered by 9.5 dB. Data shows that by reducing the SPL, VE implied a closer perception of the real cabin soundscape. Furthermore, T-test and Pairwise Comparisons results indicate that the VE is able to reconstruct several perception parameters of car cabin soundscape with no significant differences. Parameter classification is also done with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reconfirm data behavior. These outcomes confirm that VE is possible to be a tool for modifying the sound design of armored electric SUVs with requiring deliberation on some factors.