GM taps NASA’s sound of the sun recording for feature on Cadillac Lyriq

General Motors engineer Jay Kapadia spends long hours in a laboratory deep in the carmaker’s Milford Proving Grounds studying a vehicle’s design — from the body to the wheels to the seat fabric.

He then takes all of what he sees, combines it with data from GM marketing studies, and heads to a sound studio that looks more like it belongs in Hollywood than in Michigan. There, he sets about using everything from 5,000-year-old wind instruments to recordings from outer space to find a sound that will serve as the “voice of the car.”

His job is crucial as rules mandated by Congress and finalized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in recent years require automakers to add sounds to quiet-moving hybrids and EVs traveling at speeds of up to about 20 mph to warn pedestrians, cyclists and blind people that they’re there. But Kapadia also sees it as an opportunity for the automaker.

“With EVs being quiet, we have this beautiful opportunity to create brand identity with sound,” Kapadia, creative sound director for GM, told the Free Press. “Every brand will have its own sound in which the customer will know it’s that brand and establish an emotional connection with the vehicle.”

You’ll know it with your eyes closed

A classically trained musician, Kapadia, 38, was born in Mumbai, India. His birth name is Jigar Kapadia, but he goes by Jay for short.

His parents came from Indian royalty, part of the clan of Rajputs, originally from the town of Gujarat, just north of Mumbai on India’s west coast, he said. He said his great grandfather was a king until British occupation in the mid-1800s stripped him of the title. People in his hometown still consider Kapadia a prince when he visits, he said. 

In a profile the Free Press did on Kapadia two years ago, Kapadia talked about his journey to the U.S., landing in New York at age 22 and working in the recording industry with such stars as Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and Shakira.

GM hired him in 2016 to work on vehicle speakers and amplifiers. But his boss saw potential in Kapadia for more and soon he was creating various car sounds, such as seat belt alerts or turn signals, for Cadillac vehicles.

This summer, Kapadia, who has a degree in engineering, was promoted to his current job, creating the Acoustic Vehicle Alert System (AVAS) for GM’s EVs. The title is new, but Kapadia has worked with other noise and vibration engineers on the AVAS since 2017. The idea of giving the sounds a brand identity, as well as adding alerts such as a seat belt alert and a blind zone alert, are all his.

The idea of using sound as branding is good provided it is part of a bigger package, said Ayalla Ruvio, an associate marketing professor at Michigan State University who specializes in consumer behavior. Ruvio, who teaches an executive MBA course, said most automakers are not only branding with sound.

“The leather in the Cadillac has a very unique smell to it,” Ruvio said. “It’s very deliberately thinking of all the elements that make this brand unique in the eye of the consumer. Will a specific sound make you buy a car? Probably not. But will an assortment of unique features that create a very distinct brand identity make you buy a car? Probably, because you’re buying a brand identity.”

Kapadia heads back to the lab again soon. This time, he’s searching for that next unique sound to be the voice of the 2024 GMC Sierra EV pickup, the EV GM will reveal later this year and is likely to bring to market in 18 to 24 months.

So far, his completed AVAS can be heard on the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq and 2022 GMC Hummer EV and SUV. There are two exterior speakers on the cars: one is in the front and one in the rear so that people will hear the sound no matter where they are located. Kapadia said the jingle he came up with will be unmistakable.

“The moment you have a Hummer passing by you, even with your eyes closed, you’ll know it’s a Hummer,” Kapadia said. “The moment you have a Lyriq drive by, you will know it’s a Lyriq.”