We all know about Dolby Atmos’ application for the home (think select 4K TVs, Dolby Atmos soundbars and AV receivers), but there’s still one arena where the immersive audio tech hasn’t made any inroads. Until now.

It’s always been a matter of when, not if the technology would make the transition onto four wheels and we now know you’ll be able to experience the first automotive application of Dolby Atmos is the Lucid Air electric vehicle (EV).

The luxury saloon (or sedan if you’re reading this from across the pond) comes with a 21-speaker Surreal Sound system. It consists of front, rear, side and height speakers which have been positioned in a way that you and your passengers should be able to hear individual sounds move around the cabin.

With Dolby’s input, Lucid Motors tuned the system using the legendary Capitol Records Studio C recording studio, where artists such as Beck, Gloris Estefan and Robbie Williams have all recorded and mixed.

“As the first car to integrate Dolby Atmos, Lucid Air delivers an elevated, multi-dimensional sound experience on par with the other innovations at Lucid,” said Derek Jenkins, Senior VP of Design, Lucid Motors.

We’ve seen a number of manufacturers announce plans to offer immersive in-car audio experiences over the last couple of years. We had a demo of Devialet’s vision for in-car audio back in 2019, while more recently, Sennheiser has showed us its Ambeo Mobility sound system which should work with all available immersive audio formats. And, at CES 2021, Klipsch and Panasonic teamed up to support in-car Dolby Atmos music. Could we see other car manufacturers sign up to support Dolby Atmos in their vehicles?

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CES 2021: Panasonic and Klipsch team up to support in-car Dolby Atmos Music

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