Abstract

In recent years, electric vehicles are becoming more popular. This transition makes interior noise and vibration smaller according to the engine rest and makes interior more comfortable. On the other hand, this reduction has a possibility to decrease important information for drivers. In this study, we focused on the steering vibration as the vehicle speed information and investigated the influence on the comfortableness in cabin for the compatibility through subjective evaluation test using a simple driving simulator. In the test, vehicle speed controlling task was given to the participants without speed meter at acceleration conditions. In addition, subjective evaluation about the comfortability to the presented sound and vibration was conducted after the speed recognition test. As the presented steering vibration, the following four patterns were prepared. 1: internal combustion engine noise and vibration with road and wind noise (background noise), 2: electric-powered vehicle noise without vibration (background noise without vibration), 3: tire vibration with background noise, 4: motor vibration with background noise. As the result, the steering vibration of internal combustion engine or motor was found to be suitable stimuli for compatibility between the speed recognition performance and the comfortability in cabin.