Is Your EV Making You Carsick?

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CuriousGeorge said:
So clearly the solution is to replace the motor with something more powerful and increase the gearing, thus being able to achieve legal speeds at lower, presumably quieter, rpm (and Autobahn speeds with earplugs firmly in place).
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From what I've seen the most powerful motors still go up to 20k rpm. But that's an interesting idea!

dyent said:
So has anyone actually disabled the front speaker on their SE?? If so, can they post the Bimmerlink codes, thanks!
David
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Look through the Bimmercode threads on this forum. The best option, IIRC, is to use the BMW i3 interface in bimmercode to allow for an on-screen toggle for the pedestrian noisemaker.
 
ghost said:
My wife gets migraines from specific frequencies. She can't ride in my SE; otherwise, she gets one. I tried changing the wav file from the pedestrian warning and turning it off completely, to no avail. She's fine w her Audi e-tron. She says it's the whine of the motor.
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That's because you wife has the innate ability to pick up AM radio signals, where us mere mortals need to use Bimmercode to enable AM.

Another crazy theory is the Half-Life 2 & Portal wide field of view that may induce nausea.
 
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I only really hear it with my sounds turned off and my windows open (no hvac), but it's not the motor, it seems to be the inverter that emits that screeching whine, like I'm walking past a jewellery store with "ultrasonic" presence detectors in 1990.
 
Car sickness is a result of a disagreement between what we see and what the inner ear senses. We maintain balance by input from our vision and our inner ear. Part of the inner ear is sensitive to angular acceleration - changes in head position - forward backward to the side etc again with input from our vision - and another part of the inner ear is sensitive to linear acceleration - forward and backward motion - our sense of acceleration and deceleration. With e cars with strong regenerative braking - sudden changes in deceleration and also strong acceleration - add to that sudden changes in direction - the old go cart handling we Mini owners love about the cars. Some people are more sensitive to these changes resulting in car sickness. I have been testing people for vestibular disorders for a long time and get the question all the time -"why do I get car sick or sick when I fly".
 
One other observation which I cannot necessarily explain is that most people that report car sickness are passengers. Many - if not most - report if they are the driver they do not get car sick. Lots of thoughts as to why but not necessarily the purpose of this forum.
 
Stillk said:
Car sickness is a result of a disagreement between what we see and what the inner ear senses. We maintain balance by input from our vision and our inner ear. Part of the inner ear is sensitive to angular acceleration - changes in head position - forward backward to the side etc again with input from our vision - and another part of the inner ear is sensitive to linear acceleration - forward and backward motion - our sense of acceleration and deceleration. With e cars with strong regenerative braking - sudden changes in deceleration and also strong acceleration - add to that sudden changes in direction - the old go cart handling we Mini owners love about the cars. Some people are more sensitive to these changes resulting in car sickness. I have been testing people for vestibular disorders for a long time and get the question all the time -"why do I get car sick or sick when I fly".
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I studied marine bio in grad school. Counted rings on otoliths. Read the explanation about the role of the inner ear in Your Inner Fish and how alcohol changes the buoyancy of the otolith, causing someone to become tipsy from drinking. Fascinating.

In my wife's case, it's not motion induced nausea that affects her: she has a specific migraine condition that is linked to her inner ear, induced by certain frequencies or by changes in air pressure. She gets a migraine a few days in advance of rain/low pressure.

There's something w the frequency of my SE (be it the motor, inverter, or something else) that inables her to ride in it w/o triggering a migraine. We've had several electric cars, and this is the only one to have this effect on her. I know it's not the pedestrian warning sound bc I've changed it and turned it off in bimmercode. In addition, it shuts off over a certain speed.
 
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