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Meyer and Bai met during last year's Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship program at the Graduate School of Business and began working on a speaker system to make hybrid vehicles audible, especially those that can run in fully electric mode like the Toyota Prius, Camry and Highlander. On their own time, juggling their coursework, they eventually set up a company called Enhanced Vehicle Acoustics and developed a prototype of the system.
"The inspiration is the coolness factor," Meyer said. "The idea that there's a problem out there and you can do something about it."
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Prius owners are debating the bill they call the "Bell the Hybrid Act" in online chat forums across the nation. Meyer said they expect some resistance to their product. "We got a lot of voices saying, 'This is a bad idea. You're making a lot of noise.' We don't believe that. We believe this is something that has to happen."
"In business school they taught us that a good idea is one that never reaches consensus," Bai said.
Now they have a company called Enhanced Vehicle Acoustics and a plan to market their products. "People who drive Priuses are generally pretty conscientious and aware, so it seems like a good beginning market," Meyer said. As more electric cars come along, he said, the speaker system may interest both drivers and manufacturers.
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This summer Meyer and Bai are taking their prototype on the road to the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind in Dallas, the Plug-In Exposition in San Jose and NoiseCon in Dearborn, Mich. The Prius, they said, won't be coming with them. Instead, they hope to use a vehicle borrowed or volunteered on site.
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