Vigilance and proper operation and safety procedures would save a lot more lives than any kind of noisemaker.

The probably kill more than they save by impaired health from the stress and sleep deprivation they cause.

How much do they? The bulk of the sound is behind the bike where it serves no purpose other than angering people because of how overly loud they are.

Will it still be maintainable in 30-40yr? Just the other day I pulled my 80 series Land Cruiser's windshield wiper motor to epoxy one of the permanent magnets back on (it had come loose from the housing and was making a horrible grinding noise). That part is made to be rebuilt, it's every bit as simple and straightforward as the century old Westinghouse motor in my drill press. I'm confident with nothing more than my lathe I could manufacture the parts necessary to keep that thing working indefinitely.

The problem with modern cars in my view, in no particular order:

1. Too much proprietary software. 2. Proprietary interfaces--no way to swap computers between cars. They're universal computers for fuck's sake, why can't we just replace them? If my 1995 Toyota had sensibly designed, open interfaces I'd be easily able to replace any computer on it with off the shelf components. 3. Too much complexity. The hardware and software has gotten so intricately intertwined that reverse engineering it is pretty hopeless, at least from the perspective of someone just trying to keep their vehicles going. Even if point (2) above were addressed and we started talking seriously about building stuff that's meant to last we'd still have to face how damnably complicated these systems have become.

The problem in my view is nobody is trying to make an EV that I'd still want to own in 30-40yr. I'm confident if I watch the market and stockpile enough parts, and learn how to rebuild the ones that are getting rare or NLA, that I'll be able to make this 1995 Cruiser go indefinitely. If I have to make my own transmission control unit or engine controller I'm pretty sure I could do that, or hack some cob job together well enough to get me down the road. I have no such confidence about "modern" vehicles.

If someone makes an EV that looks like I'll still be able to keep it going 30+yr from now I'll buy it on the spot, but so far they all look like 5yr lifespan landfill bait.

How far can your truck tow anything? We run a motorcycle race team in Spain and going electric for our logistics vehicles would be a nightmare. Currently we can get from Barcelona to Jerez in a day. With electric that becomes 2 days, sometimes three. Several hours to charge a vehicle is a huge amount of time waiting around, especially when paying drivers by the hour, not to mention the electric vehicles are so heavy that it means a 3500kg electric van doesn’t have nearly the same payload as the diesel equivalent. So we either need bigger vehicles (requiring a commercial license and more expense) or we have to have more vehicles to move the same stuff.

That's a bit of an overstatement, but by your gauge it's also light years ahead in cost.

From an enthusiast point of view, I'd wager that it's more because a lot of the most iconic engine noises are distinctive and recognizable based on model and just general throttle feedback and it's a quirk that gives different cars a lot of personality. Versus electric cars not having that personality quirk to really tell them apart- they're all going to be quite similar in "feel" and responsiveness to the throttle. I think in general for more hands on enthusiasts electric will never really quite take over ICE obsession. From a tinkering standpoint, intricate mechanical systems like engines are far more satisfying to pour your hands over when you're rebuilding or modifying an engine than black box electrical systems that you can't really reasonably work on. The act of replacing a physical, actual part instead of plugging in a laptop to twiddle some abstract values is also more gratifying. It's the same reason I imagine that mechanical watches are pretty much universally preferred by watch collectors and enthusiasts over digital ones.

edit: When I think about it more I guess celebrating inefficiencies/nostalgia/the physical aspect of a hobby is not that different anywhere. Like people still collecting vinyl records, or using real CRTs with refurbished consoles instead of emulating, people into collecting physical books / doing their own book bindings instead of switching to digital etc.

> The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises

BTW this is a gross generalization. Many of us car enthusiasts, including oldsters like me, love EVs. And if I'm feeling a bit spicy, the fact that I can use 100% of the power without announcing that to the world is exhilarating. I love a big rumbly V8, too, but everything has it's place.

You really dont though, turbos cut the noise in half in the recent years and it's considerably nicer to watch a race.

Recently, the gt3 Porsche cup at an F1 event; you need earplugs for the gt3s 1000' away, but the F1 cars you can have a conversation, not damage your hearing (because of the turbos)