Or is it just me? And my wife? Have been driving more freeway recently, and noticed considerable road noise at freeway speeds. Our comparison is to our previous car, a Prius C, which was actually very noisy at freeway speeds. But we expected better from our new Kona EV. It was actually my wife that first mentioned it, but I was thinking the same thing. Or could it be that the lack of an engine sound, make the other outside sounds seem louder? And maybe because it is so quiet at city speeds, the highway speed difference is more noticeable? Are these stock tires more noisy? It is not grossly loud, as we can talk normally and listen to music just fine. But it just doesn't seem as quiet as we would have expected. We have another car, that we can compare to, and to us it is very quiet, on the highway as well. But in fairness we have not measured the sound with a phone decibel app. We should do that. What do you guys think? Do you think your Kona EV is noisy at freeway speeds?
Not at all. It's an incredibly quiet ride, and I've done a lot of highway miles. Of course, rough road will be noisy no matter the car.
I know my prev Ioniq PHEV, was quieter. I think once i get window deflectors, it should get quieter. With sunroof open, it sounds better than my veloster with sunroof open.
Cabin soundproofing is poor. Even with high-quality replacement tires, driving on old pavement versus new pavement makes an unusually large difference---greater difference than in my old BMW, for example. Nexens are noisy, but we all notice that noise increases rather abruptly somewhere over 100-110 km/h, which I suspect is owing to wind-effect. Is this noise generated in the front wheel wells? In any case, I think our somewhat noisy Kona is noisy largely because of cost-cutting on soundproofing materials.
Hyundai did add some: "acoustic glass for the windshield and front side windows." Also the nexens are cheap, hard (to get the epa rating) and noisy.
