Electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles have a quality most people would call a benefit: they’re quiet. At low speed, an EV or PHEV produces almost no engine noise, which is great for cabin comfort and urban noise pollution. It’s not so great for the pedestrian crossing the street who relies on hearing a vehicle before seeing it.

That gap is what an acoustic vehicle alerting system, or AVAS, is built to close.

What an acoustic vehicle alerting system actually does

An acoustic vehicle alerting system is a small electronic unit fitted to a vehicle that generates a controlled EV alert sound when the vehicle is moving at low speed, typically below 20 km/h, the range where road noise and engine sound would normally alert people nearby. Above that speed, tyre and wind noise become loud enough on their own, so the system isn’t needed in the same way.

It’s worth clearing up a common mix-up here: an EV horn alert sound and an AVAS are not the same thing. A horn is something the driver triggers on purpose, for a specific moment. An AVAS runs continuously and automatically whenever the vehicle is moving at low speed, without the driver doing anything; it’s a passive, always-on safety cue, not an alert the driver chooses to sound.

The sound also isn’t a generic beep. A well-engineered EV/PHEV audible alert adjusts its tone and volume based on vehicle speed and ambient noise, so it stays audible without becoming unnecessarily loud or intrusive. It also needs to work in both forward and reverse motion, since a silent vehicle backing up is just as much a risk as one moving forward.

Why India made it mandatory

As EV adoption grows, the population of near-silent vehicles on Indian roads grows with it. Pedestrians, cyclists, and people with visual impairments have historically relied on engine sound as a basic safety cue. Remove that cue at scale, and low-speed pedestrian incidents involving EVs become a real and measurable risk. This is the same reasoning that led regulators in the EU, US, and Japan to mandate similar systems years earlier.

India’s response is AIS-173, the Automotive Industry Standard that governs AVAS requirements for electric and hybrid vehicles. It sets out the sound pressure levels, frequency behavior, and speed thresholds a compliant system has to meet, closely aligned with the international UN R138 standard.

The compliance timeline

AIS-173 doesn’t apply all at once. The rollout is staged:

• 1 October 2026: All newly launched electric vehicle models must be equipped with an AIS-173-compliant AVAS.
• 1 October 2027: All existing electric vehicle models already on the market must be updated to comply. 

The regulation applies across M category (passenger vehicles), N category (goods vehicles), and applicable L category (two- and three-wheelers) vehicles. In practical terms, this covers nearly the full range of electric vehicles sold in India, from two-wheelers and three-wheelers to passenger cars, buses, and commercial trucks.

What this means for OEMs and fleet operators

For OEMs launching new EV models, AVAS is no longer an optional safety feature to consider; it’s a design-in requirement with a fixed deadline. Given that this needs to be integrated during the vehicle’s electrical and software architecture design, not bolted on at the end of production, the practical lead time is shorter than the October 2026 date might suggest.

For fleet operators running existing EVs, the 2027 deadline gives more runway, but retrofitting an existing fleet at scale still takes planning, sourcing units, scheduling installation, and validating that each vehicle meets AIS-173 requirements after fitting.

Where IQ-AVAS fits

IQ-AVAS | KARNA, developed by Infiquity Auto Technologies, is engineered to be compliant with AIS-173 and UN R138, and designed to work across passenger cars, three-wheelers, buses, and commercial EVs. It supports 12V and 24V platforms, multiple input types including CAN 2.0, and customizable sound profiles within regulatory limits, built for OEM integration rather than a one-size-fits-all retrofit.

As the October 2026 deadline approaches, the practical question for most OEMs isn’t whether AVAS is required; it’s which supplier can deliver a compliant, production-ready system on time. That’s the gap IQ-AVAS is built to fill.