Factors Affecting Interior Acceleration Sound Preference for Electric Vehicles: A Path Analysis

Abstract

Vehicle sound design is gaining attention in the automotive industry, especially for Electric Vehicles (EV). For EVs, acceleration sound is critical for both user experience (UX) and safety. Despite the abundance of UX-related studies investigating the external presentation of acceleration sound for EVs, internal presentation of acceleration sound seems to be overlooked. Thus, further understanding on what influences the user preferences for internal EV sound is essential for better EV sound design. This study aims to explore and develop a simple theoretical path model to help understand the relationship between pragmatic quality, hedonic quality, novelty, and user preferences for EV internal acceleration sounds. Thirty-two participants evaluated twenty-seven EV acceleration sound samples using a 12-item semantic differential scale with bipolar adjective pairs that describe the measured variables in a controlled experimental setting. The relationship between the modeled variables was analyzed using bias-corrected factor score path analysis (BCFSPA). Results showed that the modified model yielded good model fit indices and partially confirmed the initial hypotheses. It was found that pragmatic and hedonic quality had a positive relationship with user preference, whereas, novelty had a negative relationship with hedonic quality and user preference for EV sounds. This study contributes to the understanding of factors that affects user preference for EV sound and provides initial accounts to different approaches and methods for model testing.