Toyota's Hy Project created a vehicle sound designed to benefit the environment

The Toyota Hy Project started from a deceptively simple question: could the sound that vehicles emit actually help the environment rather than harm it? Global research, including studies from Oxford and other prestigious universities, suggests that certain acoustic frequency ranges have a positive impact on plants and animals, promoting biomass growth and cellular division. The team used this finding to design what they called the first vehicle sound genuinely beneficial to the environment. To make it practical, they built an intelligent processor, housed in a small patented circuit board enclosure, that dynamically adjusts the sound composition according to the vehicle's speed. What began as a test in Uruguay expanded across Latin America. The project was eventually added to the permanent collection of MoMA. Edu Pou describes it as a humble project that started with a humble intention: 'We don't know if these studies will make an impact, but it's a little change in the right direction.'