dan simmons — take you through space. dan simmons there _ take you through space.go electric is the truck. we've seen self—driving trucks starting to hit the road in the us with big rigs being trialled on long haul routes and we've been in some even bigger driverless beast operating in mines. we are really winging it around the corners as well! but while these vehicles to increase safety, they are still gas guzzlers. however, paul carter has been to a race track to see a new type of truck. in action. a tranquil morning at the top gear track in surrey. except... oh gosh! —— top gear. this driverless electric truck has been breaking the place. and with good cause. trucks make up a relatively small amount of traffic on the roads, around 2% in the eu, they have a disproportionately large impact on the environment. unless they are among the first of a new category, electric autonomous trucks. innovations such as this one are aiming to cut emissions and also designed to operate safely at high speeds. computers, cameras and lidar sensors are a familiar sight on self—drivi

so, dan simmons has been driving a little bit slower than usual, it has to be said, to find out whatlace the sound of silence. if electric cars have to make a noise, well, we could end up with something like this. or you wouldn't accidentally step out in front of it, would you? this is an art experiment to see how cars can interpret and complement the soundscape around them. more on that idea in a bit. but first, to get a feel of what the ev manufacturers themselves have in store for us, i've come to japanese car giant nissan's technical development centre in bedfordshire. what do you think people expect an electric car to sound like? that was the interesting question that we started with, what should a car sounds like? because none of us had really thought about it. itjust sounds like the engine. the leaf is one of the world's best—selling electric cars and they now come with nissan's reimagined suite of sounds called canto. we wanted to be optimistic and a little bit futuristic, but not to pretend to be anything that the car wasn't. we didn't want to pretend to be a petrol engine,

so, dan simmons has been driving a little bit slower than usual, it has to be said, to find out whate how cars could interpret and complement the soundscape around them. more on that idea in a bit. but first, to get a feel of what the ev manufacturers themselves have in store for us, i've come to japanese car giant nissan's technical development centre in bedfordshire. what do you think people expect an electric car to sound like? that was the interesting question that we started with — what should a car sounds like? because none of us had really thought about it.

so, dan simmons has been driving a little bit slower than usual, it has to be said, to find out whatnt of it, would you? this is an art experiment to see how cars can interpret and complement the soundscape around them. more on that idea in a bit. but first, to get a feel of what the ev manufacturers themselves have in store for us, i've come to japanese car giant nissan's technical development centre in bedfordshire. what do you think people expect an electric car to sound like? that was the interesting question that we started with — what should a car sounds like? because none of us had really thought about it. itjust sounds like the engine. the leaf is one of the world's best—selling electric cars and they now come with nissan's reimagined suite of sounds called canto. we wanted to be optimistic, a little bit futuristic, but not to pretend to be anything that the car wasn't. we didn't want to pretend to be a petrol engine and we ended up putting sort of three together and then melding sounds together and building from there a profile of different sounds that would work with the ca

so, dan simmons has been driving a little bit slower than usual, it has to be said, to find out whatcar sounds like? because none of us had really thought about it. itjust sounds like the engine. the leaf is one of the world's best—selling electric cars and they now come with nissan's reimagined suite of sounds called canto. we wanted to be optimistic, a little bit futuristic, but not to pretend to be anything that the car wasn't. we didn't want to pretend to be a petrol engine and we ended up putting sort of three together and then melding sounds together and building from there a profile of different sounds that would work with the car. not all new leafs will sound the same. we're the first tv crew to be invited into nissan's top secret semi—anechoic chamber, and paul's the man in charge of testing the sounds and tweaking them to different markets. because, it turns out, different countries have different ideas of what good quality sounds like. in europe, we attribute quality with a more sort of solid feel, sort of more like a low—frequency content, like a solid closing of an oak d