Federal authorities are considering removing any option of running in stealth mode in your electric and hybrid vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently setting a timetable on a bill passed by the Obama Administration that bans car manufacturers from producing vehicles with the option to shut off the noise makers installed in electric cars and hybrids.

Case in point, the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (pictured above) had been slated to hit dealerships late last year but the new regulation left Hyundai scrambling to yank all of the on\off switches for the noise maker.

Unfortunately for car manufacturers, the NHTSA isn’t in any hurry to deliver it’s timetable on the synthetic audio requirements and have given themselves three years to come up with it.

While the NHTSA drags its feet on establishing the noise maker law details, people who drive electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, which have the switch will enjoy their option. Or possibly not. Based on feedback from electric car drivers, the noise maker is apparently barely noticeable. This may in the end be very much a non-issue to those who originally balked at the idea.

Two U.S. law firms have teamed up to issue a class action lawsuit against Toyota for their vehicle with defective gas pedals, on behalf of several consumers.

The bizarre thing about the lawsuit is that it doesn’t seek to have Toyota recall and fix any of its cars that suffer from the defective pedals. No, Toyota is already doing that with eight million cars. What does it seek then?

The lawsuit “asks the Court to enjoin Toyota from implementing any fixes in the accelerator pedals of the subject vehicles without approval from the NHTSA.”

What that means is that they are asking the court to prevent Toyota from fixing any vehicles without the express permission from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The problem with this is that the NHTSA does not provide official approval for recall remedies. Therefore, if the court does find in favor of the plaintiffs Toyota cars being recalled, will never get fixed.

You’ve just got to love red tape, don’t you?

Want to see if your car is on it? Follow this link to see the complete Toyota recall car list.