THE silent smugness of an approaching electric car can scare you shitless. What sounds could be added as a warning?

Greensleeves

Adding a plinky-plonky medieval ditty used by ice-cream vans would be a pleasant way to alert people to the approach of an electric car. On the downside, it could attract children banging on the windows demanding Nobbly Bobblys and generating entirely the wrong type of attention envisioned when buying a Tesla.

Clown car

Adding the sound of a real car would be boring, so to prevent pedestrians being caught unawares electric cars could emit the ‘phut-phut’ noise of a circus clown car, complete with a parping comedy horn. This would dissipate creepiness, and satisfyingly puncture the smugness of the driver who thinks they’re special because they can afford to blow £20,000 on a car.

Horse hooves

The bucolic sound of clip-clopping horses would make a long trip up the M6 feel like a nostalgic journey into an imagined past when times were simpler. Probably the preferred choice of a Brexiter with a Vauxhall Corsa-e, though the Benny Hill theme tune would come a close second.

Coldplay

Coldplay are ecologically minded, except when they’re flying a private jet across the Atlantic to play one song at the BRITs, so it makes sense that electric cars should play their miserable emo-indie hits as they glide along. Who doesn’t want to hear Chris Martin whining out ‘Yellow’ as they walk to Tesco? Well, pretty much everyone.

The theme from Psycho

Why not add some drama to a busy Saturday morning high street by having Bernard Herrmann’s famously frightening theme music wafting from a passing Nissan Leaf. It won’t be much creepier than their current silence and will making queuing for the post office a lot more atmospheric.