Ladies and gentlemen, start your senses. In response to the quiet and smooth nature of EVs, a recently published patent from Audi explores ways to make electric vehicles more dramatic, adding back in some of the sensations that their electric motors and the lack of an engine’s tiny explosions have robbed us of. The ideas range from interesting to downright wacky.

German patent application DE 10 2025 107 436 A1 is wide-ranging, but its two sets of claims center on ways to make the EV experience more sensorial. Synthesized engine sounds predate removing the internal-combustion element of a vehicle’s powertrain, and they only seem to be more popular on EVs, which are so quiet that engineers have to attack often-ignored sources of sound like tire and wind noise. The patent has a few solutions to this perceived problem.

The smooth operation of electric motors is cast as a negative here, with the amplification of mechanical vibration and sound as the answer. Essentially, instead of isolating the powertrain from the cabin, engineers would create a direct connection, possibly using hollow steel, to transmit motor vibrations to the occupants. (Your German word of the day is Schwingungsübertragungselement, meaning “vibration-transmission element.”) Audi could also leave out some of the sound deadening currently used to quell the subtle whirr of electric motors.

Most EVs use single-speed reduction gears, although a handful of Porsche, Audi, and Mercedes models have two-speed transmissions. Audi’s idea goes somewhere stranger: Add a way to decouple the electric motor from the driveline so it can keep spinning without moving the car. In other words, let the driver rev an EV while it’s sitting still, placing the transmission in the equivalent of neutral. Paired with the sound- and vibration-amplification concept, that could satisfy some primal pedal-stomping urges.

Once something to be feared and mitigated, turbo lag has popped back up in this conversation in relation to EVs. Again, electric powertrains don’t have turbos—despite what the back of several electric Porsches might have you believe—but nostalgia for the wait-wait-wait-BAM hit of turbo boost could spawn a computer-synthesized analog. Separately, Audi suggests temporarily unlocking extra power or torque, either at the driver’s request or when AI anticipates that more performance is wanted.

German engineers are nothing if not thorough, so we’re a little surprised there is no taste component to these drama-adding concepts. Nevertheless, the addition of scent, heretofore reserved for making luxury interiors smell nice and smoky ones smell like pine trees, caught our interest. The odor could be dynamic, with calming perfumes produced when you’re sitting in traffic and a more stimulating bouquet that comes on when the road gets more interesting—like Sport mode for your nasal passages. The EV-appropriate “smell of electrosmog,” which Audi compares with the smell of a toy train and we’d interpret to mean ozone, is also mentioned as a possibility.

The patent also covers what amounts to a rolling special-effects generator. By dragging a sacrificial piece of metal on the pavement, sparks could literally fly—something not all automakers want to associate with their electric powertrains—under acceleration, at speed, or even under braking. Another element could produce an electric arc, like the ones that emanate from a Tesla coil, adding some theatricality that’s a little more in line with the vehicle’s propulsion mechanism. The patent proposes putting it outside the vehicle for others to enjoy and/or in a driver’s field of view, particularly in a center console, and making it respond to accelerator-pedal position.

To heighten the sensation of speed, projections on the inside of the windshield could create a sci-fi-esque warp effect. Calming scenery could be employed there to bring you back down. Electronically variable paint and an animated face or mouth on the exterior could react to your driving or the conditions; the patent suggests turning the fenders red during sporty driving.

There is, of course, no guarantee that any of these schemes will be adopted in a production model, but it’s nice to know that Audi is thinking about EVs in a way other than pure quiet.