rombo Start Rombo

Rombo is Italian for the roar of an engine.

It's also a small web app for your Tesla's browser. It follows your speed from GPS, runs a virtual engine and gearbox, and synthesizes the engine sound live, through the car's speakers. Nothing to install: open the page, tap Start, drive.

Start Rombo

Made for the Tesla browser. Set it up while parked.

Rombo on a car screen at night: the Black Rider V8 dashboard, a red LED panel with the speed, the gear, a curve of lit dots for the rpm and a column display moving with the sound.
Black Rider, a cross-plane V8, at night.

How it works

Speed from GPS. The car's browser reports your position about once a second. Rombo smooths it and looks slightly ahead, so the engine doesn't fall behind the car.

A virtual drivetrain. Every engine has its own torque curve, gear ratios and shift points. The gearbox picks a gear the way an automatic would, and blips the throttle on the way down.

Sound, not samples. Each firing pulse is computed while you drive and shaped by a model of the exhaust. There are no recordings, so it never loops.

Seven engines, seven dashboards

From a small turbo four to an early-80s V6 with square gauges and a date display. Each engine sounds different and has its own dashboard, in light and in dark.

The Black Rider LED dashboard.
Black Rider V8 5.0
The 1985 car's square gauges and date display.
1985 V6 2.8
The E-drive cluster with slanted scales and a road.
E-drive
The Muscle V8's round retro dials.
Muscle V8 6.2

See all seven

In the car

  1. Park, open getrombo.com in the car's browser and tap Start Rombo.
  2. In Settings, pick an engine, and your car's trim under Car (Standard, Long Range or Performance), so the virtual engine works as hard as your Tesla does.
  3. Tap Start, allow location, keep the browser open, and drive.

Please set everything up while parked, and don't touch the screen while driving.