The whole topic of artificial sound for EVs is overblown. History repeats itself. When cars were first invented, it was required that a man walked with a red flag in front of the car to warn people on the street.

Hopefully we will eventually just get used to silent cars. The only place it makes a little sense is in the parking lots, where there are already many other silent vehicles like electric scooters, bicycles or pedestrians. Get used to cars also moving silenty at slow speeds.

The journalist or editor of the article seems a little confused about what the technical officer actually said. Adding the word "that's" in between the perfect valid quoted words "sound designed" changes the meaning ever so slightly. All sounds in cars are designed, but it doesn't necessarily mean that sounds are added artificially like the article implies. The mentioned 1% that is artificially added to their existing cars is for stuff like gadgets and blinkers, because lights doesn't make sound. Amplifying and filtering sounds isn't really artificial, it's just design. What they're saying makes sense. They don't want "a man to walk a flag in front of the car".

Anyway, maybe it's just me, but when I read the article I get the impression that the journalist assumes that all the stupid electric cars needs to have ice-cream truck jingles playing constantly.