Latest news with #WarwickAcoustics
Top Gear
03-07-2025
- Automotive
- Top Gear
What are electrostatic speakers? And are they the next big thing in the world of car audio?
Tech Great for sound quality, but how they can be packaged into cars is what makes them interesting Skip 1 photos in the image carousel and continue reading Car hi-fi speakers are heavy, bulky and wasteful of power. Packaging the speakers in the doors or dash is a headache. So is getting rid of the heat they generate. Now imagine a speaker that isn't a cone, but a simple ultralight thin film. Instead of that heavy cone with its attached magnet vibrating back and forth, the whole film vibrates under electrostatic force that changes at the frequency of the music. Advertisement - Page continues below Electrostatic speakers have been a cult among hi-fi boffins for decades, because of their natural uncoloured sound. But they are new in cars. High-end ESL headphone maker Warwick Acoustics has been in the R&D phase for car systems for years, and says it will be offered in a production car this year. You might like One of the breakthroughs is shrinking the panels. Increasing the electrostatic charge and containing it between the stator plates that sit at a 1mm gap either side of the vibrating membrane. Material science has enabled this. That means the sound level rises hugely per area of panel. Large flat panels would normally be just as hard to fit into car trim as deep cones. But new smaller panels are thin enough to lie behind curved door and dash panels, or the roofliner, or even in head restraints. The possibilities for packaging and stereo imaging are hugely exciting. Advertisement - Page continues below They're good for efficiency too. A big conventional audio system can draw nearly 1kW. Imagine a big battery EV averaging 40mph and 3mpkWh – not untypical – then the audio has wasted about 20 miles of potential range. It's worse in summer because the waste energy is heat radiated from the speakers, so you might have to run the aircon harder. The ESL uses less than one fifth of that energy. There's also a significant manufacturing imprint. Conventional magnetic speakers contain a lot of environmentally damaging rare earth metals including neodymium and dysprosium. Even in an electric car with rare earth magnets in its motors, the hi-fi can account for 30 per cent of all the rare earths in the car. While home ESLs have always been crushingly expensive, Warwick Acoustics says the new installations will be priced on par with, say, the high-end optional car systems such as Burmester. Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
The Independent
27-02-2025
- Automotive
- The Independent
British audio maker claims its new car speakers boost EV range by 20 miles
A new form of in-car speaker, set to debut in a car this year, could dramatically reduce energy use and boost the range of the electric cars they're fitted in. British firm Warwick Acoustics claims that its new electrostatic speaker systems can boost the efficiency of a large car with a 100kWh battery by up to 20 miles on a full charge versus the same vehicle with a conventional speaker system. The lightweight, paper-thin speakers work differently to traditional loudspeakers and are already available in a range of headphones. Now the tech is moving into cars, with huge packaging benefits meaning they can be positioned in different places around a vehicle to produce optimum sound quality. In a demonstration of the technology in a Polestar 2 development car, the sound clarity and depth was some of the best we've experienced in a car. Because these new speakers use 90 per cent less energy than conventional loudspeakers, it reduces a car's energy consumption when listening to music. The electrostatic speakers are 90 per cent lighter and 100 per cent recyclable by mass, too. Warwick Acoustics CEO, Mike Grant, said: "As the EV market matures, consumers are more aware than ever of the variations in real-world range at different temperatures and different driving environments versus the official certification tests. We know from our work with multiple vehicle manufacturers that they are increasingly focussed on reducing energy consumption in ancillary systems, such as the climate control and audio systems, to minimise consumer's need to change their driving behaviour with EVs.' Although Warwick Acoustics won't reveal which car maker it is working with to debut its new speaker technology, it's rumoured that it will appear in the new all-electric Range Rover, which is set to go on sale later this year.
