I WANT IT TO MAKE THAT JETSONS BLEEBLING SOUND: The NHTSA Says Electric Vehicles Can No Longer Stay Silent at Low Speeds.

I’M STILL HOLDING OUT FOR A JETSONS-STYLE BLEEBLING SOUND: Electric vehicles can be so quiet that they pose a new risk on the road. But what kind of artificial sound should be added?

TEST-DRIVING the 2013 Nissan Leaf. Still no Jetsons bleebling sound, though.

COMING SOON: Electric-car ringtones. I want mine to make that bleebling sound from The Jetsons. Plus, from the comments: ‘Let’s hope for pushrod v8 burble as an option on the Nissan Leaf.” Heh.

MORE ON THE CALL to make electric cars louder. I want that Jetsons-style bleebling sound.

WHEN THE HEADLINE DOESN’T MATCH THE ARTICLE: Harley-Davidson Will Soon Be All-Electric, CEO Says.

[Jochen] Zeitz’s pronouncement seems guaranteed to make a not-insignificant portion of the manufacturer’s customer base cringe. For many enthusiasts, the thing that really sets a Harley apart from other motorcycles—American-made or otherwise—is a thunderously loud internal combustion engine. But the company knows that no matter how important those large-displacement mills might be change is on the horizon.

Harley purists can take solace in the fact that the internal combustion engine seems safe for the immediate future. The brand may have been one of the first major motorcycle companies to release an all-electric model, but it plans to ease its way into electrification. The kind of evolution that Zeitz envisions for the company and its motorcycles will take time.

“It takes decades, right?” he said to the website. “But you have to also think in decades rather than just thinking about what year and the short-termism that everyone is exposed to as a public company. We have to think about the transition, and preparing for that transition is why LiveWire was born.”

Will the big electric choppers at least have a Jetsons-style bleebling sound as they zoom past?

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Stop with the Jetsons Nostalgia!

1) The Jetsons was not science fiction any more than The Flintstones was archeology. It was, like its Stone Age partner, a midcentury family sitcom—I Love Lucy/The Honeymooners/Father Knows Best with different backdrops and dumber jokes.1 The commentary (such as it is) about technology mostly consists of complaints about devices breaking down and costing too much. Automation also means George and Jane Jetson do nothing all day except push a few buttons. If real, their lives would incredibly boring. (The Feminine Mystique was a bestseller for a reason.) The show is definitely not Star Trek.

The Jetsons is graphically appealing, but it only works because we don’t take it literally as a portrait of the future. The Jetsons live in a world without trees, grass, or privacy. Anyone in a flying car can peer straight into their windows, which also appear to be open all the time. People live in the sky for no reason other than it makes for cool drawings. You can’t take a walk around the neighborhood. Ever wonder, What’s on the Ground in The Jetsons? (Spoiler: “Homeless people and walking birds.”)

2) Star Trek’s fundamental appeal was not about the future or technology per se. The show portrays a setting in which smart people have new experiences and learn new things, solve important problems, and forge deep friendships. Nobody worries about money or office politics. The show’s values are humane. Everyone’s job is important and the boss deserves respect. As I learned in a big survey I did while researching The Power of Glamour, for many of its fans Star Trek represents an ideal workplace.

Star Trek’s vision of a nerd-friendly universe made the future glamorous, but only to the select few for whom that vision resonated. When originally broadcast Star Trek had lousy ratings. Most people didn’t find it especially appealing.2 Its pop culture success dates to syndicated reruns in the 1970s, which is when I saw it. (The first fan convention was in 1972.) By then, its New Frontier spirit, complete with Cold War analogies, was already out of step with the times. The show attracted fanatical devotion partly because popular culture offered few (no?) other celebrations of earnest nerds and their values.

Fair enough; but the question must be asked at this point: Can we still get an electric car with a Jetsons-style bleebling sound?

DANGERS OF ELECTRIC CARS: I mowed down a lady. “Early on, Shirley told me that she hadn’t heard the car running. We may not always be conscious of it, but humans use subtle sensory clues as a sort of early-warning system. A running engine would likely have alerted Shirley that my car had the potential to move. Who knew that the old motorcycle adage ‘loud pipes save lives’ also applied to idling electric cars?”

If I get an electric car, I want it to make a Jetsons style bleebling noise.

SORRY, UNLESS IT USES ANTIGRAVITY OR REACTIONLESS THRUSTERS IT DOESN’T COUNT: Larry Page’s ‘flying car’ has been spotted in the wild, and it just looks like a tiny aeroplane.

Also, it should make that Jetsons bleebling sound.

SEE, AIRPLANE-BASED FLYING CARS ARE AMUSING BUT USELESS. I want Jetsons style antigravity, preferably with that cute bleebling sound.

CHANGE: House follows Senate, passes noise bil for electric cars and hybrids. As long as I can get that Jetsons-style bleebling sound.

UPDATE: Yeah, this is what I mean! Thanks to reader C.J. Burch for the link.

And reader Art Welling writes:

I am working with some of my students to build an electric car (go-cart of unGodly speed). One thing I noticed on the second test run, and we fixed at once…. the darn thing is silent as a ghost. I had visions of cars backing out in front of this cart, having never heard it coming along at ludicrous speeds.

I had the boys wire a horn circuit and install a horn. Two horns, actually. Loud ones.

All that said, is there really NOTHING more important for those highly paid legislators to deal with down in that swamp on the Potomac?

Look at it this way: While they were passing this, they were, briefly, doing no harm elsewhere.