I don’t know if you’ve encountered an electric car when it’s moving but the motor is off, but if you have, you probably were startled by the silence. That’s because if the gas engine hasn’t been turned on, you don’t hear a thing while it’s moving. It’s quite weird. In fact, the silence has been a problem for both pedestrians and cyclists. So in a bid to increase safety, Nissan has announced their new Leaf electric car will emit a “beautiful and futuristic” noise similar to the sound of the spinners (the flying cars) in director Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”. More after the jump:

According to Toshiyuki Tabata (via Bloomberg), Nissan’s noise and vibration expert, “We decided that if we’re going to do this, if we have to make sound, then we’re going to make it beautiful and futuristic. We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art.”

The plan is for the sound system to turn on automatically when the car reaches 12 mph.

While I don’t know if the sound is exactly like the spinner’s from “Blade Runner” or it’s just influenced by the movie….but either way it’s very cool. I know as a fan of the movie, if I hear car’s in real life making the noise I’ll always smile as it drives past me.

If you aren’t familiar with the sound of the spinner’s, here’s the beginning of “Blade Runner”. The spinner’s fly towards the end of the clip.

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