Electric vehicle having synthesized internal combustion engine sound

An electric vehicle that includes an electric motor for transmitting torque to a wheel of the vehicle, and that does not include:

• (i) an internal combustion engine, (ii) a transmission connected to the internal combustion engine, and (iii) a clutch mechanism connected to the internal combustion engine, the electric vehicle comprising:
• a pseudo-shifter configured to be operated by a driver of the vehicle to select an arbitrary virtual gear stage mode among a plurality of virtual gear stage modes in which torque characteristics of the electric motor differ in stages with respect to a rotational speed of the electric motor;
• a pseudo-clutch configured to be operated by the driver of the vehicle when the pseudo-shifter is operated and configured to simulate an operation of the clutch mechanism;
• and
• a controller configured to control the electric vehicle,
• wherein the controller is configured to:
• execute a calculation process of calculating a virtual engine speed, which is a rotation speed of a virtual engine when a torque transmitted from the electric motor to the wheel is assumed to be the torque transmitted from the virtual engine to the wheel via a virtual clutch mechanism and a virtual transmission, based on the virtual gear stage mode selected by the pseudo-shifter and an operation amount of the pseudo-clutch, the virtual engine speed being calculated according an equation “Ne=Npx(1/r)×slip,” where “Ne” is the virtual engine speed, “NP” is a shaft rotational speed of a propeller shaft connected to the electric motor, “r” is a gear ratio corresponding to the virtual gear stage mode selected by the pseudo-shifter, and “slip” is a slip ratio of the virtual clutch mechanism calculated from the operation amount of the pseudo-clutch, and
• generate an engine sound corresponding to the virtual engine speed and an engine selected by a driver of the electric vehicle from among several selectable engines, for output by a speaker of the electric vehicle.