July 28, 2025 - Motion Sickness

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 28, 2025 and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.

Motion sickness is a challenging phenomenon that afflicts many people in varying conditions. The primary symptoms are nausea, vomiting and dizziness. It's believed to be a reaction that developed early in the evolutionary history of hominids like humans. It generally occurs when there is an inconsistency in the sensory signals received by the brain from the eyes, inner ear, hearing and other senses. Scientists believe it originally evolved as a defense mechanism to induce vomiting if the victim inadvertently ate something poisonous, as would have been common when we were still hunter/gatherers. 

In a vehicle, motion sickness almost exclusively affects passengers and almost never drivers. This is believed to be due to the fact that passengers are not in control and can't always anticipate the motions of the vehicl,e leading to that sensory disconnect. Some of the key technologies going into modern vehicles may be making the motion sickness problem worse. Recent studies are indicating that passengers in electric vehicles are experiencing greater instances of motion sickness than in internal combustion vehicles. In automaked vehicles like robotaxis, it's even more of an issue because everyone is a passenger. 

Some of the key traits of EVs that make them appealing also seem to be contributing to motion sickness. In a combustion vehicle, there tends to be a delay in response, and there are multiple signals, such as engines revving and other vehicle motion, that combine to reinforce the correct messages to the brain. Since EVs are so quiet, the riders don't get as much feedback about what is happening beyond their eyes, seeing the world moving past. Rapid, unanticipated acceleration and deceleration exacerbate the problem. 

Research on how to mitigate the issue by helping to ensure that all sensory signals match is ongoing and includes efforts like active suspension and different sound inputs. But this is likely to be an issue that passengers will be dealing with for some years yet. 

Thanks for listening.