Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America has launched a unique modular audio system designed specifically for electric vehicles (EVs). The company says the speaker design will bring EV owners a high-quality listening experience with reduced energy consumption and weight for a more environmentally friendly and efficient system overall.

Panasonic Automotive’s new patent-pending audio system is a modular and scalable design that utilizes the cabin environment in its sound calibration. The system includes a power-saving EV audio option that reconfigures speaker placement to optimize sound. It also leverages the architecture of the vehicle to gain location advantage in order to direct the sound at a high level, directly to the ears of the driver and passenger instead of saturating the vehicle’s cabin with sound through traditional door-mounted speakers.

Panasonic says its EV audio achievements include:

• Modular, Space-Saving Speaker Design – By mapping the base audio system across the cabin, Panasonic has drastically simplified the number of speakers needed to maintain optimal sound performance. Eliminating bulky door speakers frees up space within the reach zone for drivers, and, in turn, reduces vehicular weight. This allows more space in the car for drivers, lowers the vehicle mass, and offers more efficiency in operation and manufacturing.
• Improved Acoustic Performance – The audio system delivers clean sound by shifting sound away from being haphazardly concentrated in the front or from the bottom of the cabin. Sound is noticeably directed toward passengers’ ears and can reduce listener fatigue on long drives. Compared to traditional speaker systems, this ensures that all passengers enjoy the same great audio performance.
• Lower Power Consumption – Testing of the new system design has shown up to 67% reduction in power consumption, conserving valuable energy that can be redirected to add up to more miles on the road for the average driver.
• Panasonic’s EV Audio introduces a sustainable design with improved vehicle efficiency by reducing the system’s overall power draw. Possessing a simplified bill of materials, this audio system requires reduced gauge wiring that weighs less than traditional wiring, takes up less space, and relies less on costly amounts of metals, like copper. This result aims to enable a paradigm shift within the EV community to usher in a new wave of vehicle components design based on improved efficiency.