The story behind the sound design with Jean-Michel Jarre - Episode 1: the conversation

The decision to enlist Jean-Michel Jarre’s services to develop the sounds for future electric vehicles started when the artist and Luca de Meo, Renault Group’s CEO, sat down during the International Motor Show in Munich in 2021 – where Megane E-Tech electric was on display. They were keen to work together straight away, on the sound experience inside vehicles and outside them: the Welcome sequence when you step into the car and the VSP (electric vehicles make no sound at slow speeds as their motor is silent).

The page may have been blank but the workplace was colourful: it included a crew from Ircam(a long-time Renault partner, which conducts research into music and acoustics) and a sound design team that is up to date on the latest technical and regulatory requirements and the issues associated with developing these sounds.

This meeting between Jean-Michel Jarre’s world of sound creation and Renault’s world of electric vehicles is an opportunity for the brand to stand out and assert itself in an underexplored and practically unexploited territory for expression. It’s a territory that lasts a few seconds and the whole endeavour may have seemed utopian, but they have risen to the challenge with panache.