We all know that music plays a big part in our lives, especially in the car. In-car infotainment and audio technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the last decade or so, all so that we can stream our Spotify playlists seamlessly and in crystal clarity.
But did you know that music also impacts the way we drive? And no, I’m not talking about your impromptu karaoke session on your way to the office this morning.
Depending on the type of songs you’re listening to, you may either drive more calmly or more aggressively. That much is obvious from anyone who has spent any amount of time behind the wheel of a car, but certain genres of music could also make you a more efficient driver, which is particularly important if you own an electric vehicle.
To see what kind of effect music has on EV range, Kia’s United Kingdom arm conducted a study that subjected participants – all of whom were said to have never driven an EV before – to a 29 km drive in the EV6 crossover.
Along the predefined test route, a fixed playlist was played through the car’s infotainment system, containing a variety of songs from different genres. Each person was fitted with an Empatica E4, a medical-grade wristband that records biometric data such as heartbeats, heart rate variability, shifts in skin temperature and electrodermal activity.
The two-day study was overseen by Dr Duncan Williams, a lecturer at the University of Salford’s School of Science, Engineering and Environment. Dr Williams also co-founded WaveTrace, a psychoacoustic consultancy specialising in biometric tracking of human responses to sound and music stimuli.
The test route is claimed to cover the EV6’s intended use scenarios and include both start-stop city traffic, roundabouts and tight residential roads as well as highways, fast inland sections and twisty country roads. The songs, which were played in the same order every time, were ‘Awake’ by Tycho, ‘Hello’ by Adele, ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd, ‘Nautilus’ by Anna Meredith, ‘Fade’ by Kanye West and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
“What we found from only two days of testing was that music really can have a dramatic influence on the real-world driving range of an electric vehicle,” said Dr Williams. “Different songs resulted in varying electrodermal activity and blood volume increase for each of the participants. This had a knock-on effect on driving style, and ultimately influenced the real-world driving range of the EV6.”
Drivers were said to be influenced by the tempo, beat and dynamics of each song. Classical music like Symphony No. 9 created a “calm, focused and balanced” environment suitable for composed and level-headed driving, causing participants to drive four times more efficiently compared to up-tempo pop songs like ‘Blinding Lights’. The latter was said to invoke intense emotions behind the wheel and promoted ‘more spirited and energetic’ driving styles that were twice as inefficient.
Sitting between the two extremes were soul ballads like ‘Hello’, the slower pace of which was offset by building crescendos that also encouraged range-sapping driving styles. Overall, the participants lost an average of 36.18 km of the EV6’s indicated range on the 29 km drive, with up-tempo pop songs taking up 10.4% of the playlist but contributing to 23.6% of the range expended. By contrast, Symphony No. 9 made up a considerable 32.5% of the playlist but only 7.7% of range lost was attributed to it.
This study was obviously meant to market the EV6 and its 14-speaker Meridian sound system, but its findings were interesting nevertheless. Too often, buyers place a lot of importance on the claimed range figures, not realising that the way the drive also plays a big factor. Listening to more calming music is just one of the ways drivers can help themselves eke more kilometres from every charge – and every tank of petrol and diesel, too.
The Kia EV6 – replete with the aforementioned Meridian system – is on sale in Malaysia, priced at RM300,668. For that BMW iX3-rivalling price, you get the all-wheel-drive model with 321 hp and 605 Nm of torque, enabling it to get from zero to 100 km/h in 5.2 seconds. It also comes with a 77.4 kWh lithium-ion battery that provides an impressive 506 km of range.
