Marketplace Morning Reports new Skin in the Game series explores what we can learn about

money and careers from the $300 billion video game industry. Plus, here how an Oakland-based

program helps young people get the skills they need to break into this booming industry.

Listen to Skin in the Game and more from the Marketplace Morning Report wherever you get your

podcasts. Why do electric vehicles sound like angels from outer space? From American public

media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty-Carrino.

There is a federal regulation in the US that requires quiet vehicles, meaning hybrid and

electric cars to have synthetic sounds added to them. That's because without combustion engines,

EVs don't naturally produce any sound at slower speeds, which makes them dangerous for other road

users. We wanted to know why these cars sound the way they do, so we asked someone with direct

experience. My name is Daniel Van and I'm the Executive Creative Director here at Made Music

Studio. What I do is something special called sonic branding.

And so that's the strategic use of sound and music to help brands build their own identity.

In 2017, we were approached by Nissan to develop a sound for their electric vehicles that were

going to be coming out in subsequent years. And that sound would be the sound that you hear when

the vehicle is approaching you. So an external sound of the vehicle. We love that these electric

vehicles are quiet. There's no noise pollution with them or it's minimal noise pollution.

But it's still a safety hazard and it's something that because it's mandated now, there's an

opportunity and a need to look at that sound through the lens of the brand and through the lens

of marketing. So for the Nissan Leaf, the deliverable is a two-second piece of audio that's going to be

looped on a piece of hardware inside the car. When a car is idling, you're just going to hear

that one piece of audio looped and it should sound smooth. It shouldn't sound like it's hiccuping

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