How Dolby Atmos is driving cars to the next frontier of entertainment
After Chinese EV makers, Mahindra announces Dolby Atmos in its Electric Origin SUVs - BE 6 and XEV 9e.

“As Indians, we all love our music, and we spend so much time on the road. So I think that’s the best combination we can think of.”
Ashim Mathur, Vice-President Marketing – APAC, at Dolby Laboratories can’t put across the appeal of Dolby Atmos for the Indian market in simpler words. A decade after Dolby brought its immersive audio experience to theatres, Atmos is now rolling out into car models across the world, including Mahindra in India.
In 2024, Li MEGA became the first car to get Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision powered by three OLED screens (two in the front console and one drop-down screen in the rear) and a 21-speaker, 2,160 watts max output. Now, Mahindra has announced that it will integrate Dolby Atmos in its Electric Origin SUVs – BE 6 and XEV 9e and will also have this immersive content streamed via Gana.

“The whole basis of Dolby Atmos, which is movement of sound from a content perspective, is really coming to life as far as cars are concerned. We are working across the automobile chain and with streaming partners… the flexibility which Dolby Atmos provides on the content and device side is helping us,” Mathur added. Citing the example of Mahindra, he said, the 16 speakers in a way optimise each passenger seat from an experience perspective.
“There is content availability. There are a lot of tracks which are available in different languages, which is so critical in India. So, it is landing well for us… but it’s still early days,” Mathur told indianexpress.com, adding that with the learnings Dolby has globally they do stand a good chance of really succeeding in this aspect as well.
The car, with its insulated cabins, could be the best environment to consume audio content in and to ensure the best experience, Dolby has to work with companies on the tuning as well as the placement of the speakers. “There is a lot which goes on with each OEM, because each car is different from that perspective. And we will make sure that it is tuned accordingly, as per whatever the configurations are available for the best optimised experience.”

Mathur says this is not a difficult conversation despite the fact that car companies have been adding audio in a certain way for decades. “It is probably a slightly different conversation, because cars have been all about style, quality, safety. So entertainment probably is important, but probably not that much.” Things are changing, though, with the proliferation of EVs. “There’s so many new things which you can do in a quick frame of time as well. It’s not that you are dependent on long cycles of gestation and things like that,” he said, adding how this new pace of change is impacting adoption of new technologies.
“The realisation is setting in now that cars are multi-functional devices like your smartphones and you can do so much more. And entertainment is definitely back on track… has its own place and value. That’s why technologies like Dolby Atmos are getting rapidly adopted in these vehicles.”
“People’s preferences and how they consume entertainment is changing rapidly. They have time in the car, they want to use it in the best way possible,” Mathur said, adding this is why companies like Li Auto are offering Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos together. “There are services in China, for example, which are streaming content with Dolby vision and Atmos together. This is helping our case and the content will drive adoption.”

Mathur is hopeful that the partnership with Mahindra will help open doors with other Indian brands. “As the market grows and evolves there will be more partners, because there is room for people to grow and this experience to be widely available. We are in talks with a few other partners as well and we’ll be announcing and sharing more.”
Dolby Atmos for cars is not going to be limited to new cars. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025 earlier this month, Pioneer showcased an immersive in-vehicle listening experience that combines Apple CarPlay, which now includes support for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos, with a 4-channel solution applicable to a majority of automobiles on the road today. “Once we get to that level, that really opens up the market. That could be an amazing possibility to really democratise the experience.”

On the future of Dolby Vision and Atmos, Mathur said one thing they are internally focused on is the “millions of devices still untapped”. “There is huge room for these technologies to grow and really get to more mass scale, depth and width with different partners across the world.
And there is a speaker business which we are really bullish about. Smartphones from a Dolby Vision perspective are really catching up. Dolby Vision capture and playback is something which is really growing on smartphones along with the audio part as well,” he concluded.
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