As car engines go electric, the hum of gas and diesel engines could give way to traffic silence. Or, it could give way to an opportunity for marketers: sonic branding.

According to Jo Roberts’ article in Marketing Week, the English automaker, Lotus Engineering, is already making an effort to brand the future sound of electric cars. Lotus, in conjunction with sonic design house, Condiment Junkie, has come up with a variety of sound ideas from science fiction to nature.  

In the future, your car could zip like something out of Star Trek or purr like a real-life kitten. Another possibility is that engine sounds will be customizable like a cell phone ringtone.

Colin Peachey, a chief engineer at Lotus, says, “The challenge for us is how [can we] make the electric car futuristic enough but still have a noise that pedestrians would recognize as a car coming.”

In May, CNN reported a story about a boy who was mildly injured after he was hit by a Toyota Prius. The car was operating in (silent) electric mode and the boy never heard it coming. The National Federation of the Blind has expressed similar concerns about the dangers of silent cars.

These safety concerns seem to legitimize the need for manufactured engine sounds, but whether or not marketers will have free reign on branding possibilities is still unknown.