System-Level Harmonic NVH Engineering in Electric Drivetrains: A State-of-the-Art Review from Gear Microgeometry to Sound Branding

Electric vehicles (EVs) have fundamentally changed the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) landscape of automotive powertrains. In the absence of masking internal-combustion-engine noise, harmonic components such as gear whine, electric-motor orders, and inverter-related tones become more perceptible and more critical to vehicle refinement. This review synthesizes the current state of the art in harmonic NVH engineering for electric drivetrains, focusing on the interactions between gear geometry, manufacturing variability, electromechanical coupling, structural transfer, and human sound perception. Classical mechanisms of gear-mesh excitation are revisited together with emerging EV-specific challenges, including long-wavelength flank deviations, ghost orders, lightweight housing dynamics, and psychoacoustic sound-quality requirements. The review further examines recent progress in predictive and data-driven approaches, including machine-learning-based gear-noise modeling, digital-twin concepts, and virtual NVH assessment workflows. Overall, the literature shows that harmonic NVH engineering in EVs is evolving from a conventional gear-noise problem into a multidisciplinary system-level task integrating gear dynamics, manufacturing science, structural acoustics, electric-drive control, psychoacoustics, and data-driven optimization. This review provides a structured synthesis of these developments and identifies key research gaps and future directions for the next generation of refined electric drivetrains.