To promote greater road safety, Nissan has developed a new sound alert aimed at warning pedestrians and cyclists that a slow-moving hybrid or an electric car is nearby.

Because such vehicles can operate silently in electric mode, they sometimes take pedestrians and cyclists by surprise and pose a safety hazard in traffic. Development of the audio alert grew out of the European Commission-led eVADER (Electric Vehicle Alert for Detection and Emergency Response) project. The project spanned three years.

The audio alert is triggered after the vehicle detects the presence of nearby pedestrians or cyclists. Nissan built the system into a LEAF EV for trials.

Other consortium members involved in the project included Renault, LMS International (a Siemens business), Austrian Institute of Technology, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, PSA Peugeot Citroen and others.

Click here to listen to the alert. Does it remind you of the soundtrack for a certain iconic horror movie?