Say goodbye to AM radio: Why automakers are ditching it from new models

(NEXSTAR) – Your next car may be missing a button that allows you to switch between AM and FM radio. Automakers are increasingly opting to eliminate AM radio in their new vehicles.

BMW, Mazda, Volvo, Volkswagen and Tesla, among others, have already removed or plan to remove AM radio from at least some electric models. Ford is going even further, reports the Detroit Free Press, and is ditching AM in all new cars, gas or electric.

Car manufacturers often cite electromagnetic interference as a reason for removing radios from electric vehicles. Electric motors can interfere with AM radio frequencies, causing static to sound on the airwaves.

But in a statement to the Free Press, Ford also said it’s just changing with the times.

“Most AM stations in the United States, as well as several countries and automakers globally, are modernizing radio by offering Internet streaming via mobile apps, FM, digital radio and satellite options,” he said. said company spokesman Wes Sherwood.

But for many listeners, AM radio is not a thing of the past. The Washington Post reports that there are still more than 4,000 US AM radio stations broadcasting news, talk shows, sports and more.

“This is a tone-deaf display of total ignorance about what AM radio means to Americans,” Michael Harrison, editor of the radio industry magazine Talkers, told the Post.

There are also concerns that the measure could make it more difficult to send emergency weather alerts. The National Association of Broadcasters calls AM radio “the backbone of the nation’s emergency alert system.”

“Unlike FM radio, AM radio operates at lower frequencies and longer wavelengths, which allows it to pass through solid objects and travel farther than other radio waves,” explains Senator Ed Markey in a press release criticizing the elimination of radio by car manufacturers. “As a result, FEMA’s National Public Advisory System, through which FEMA delivers critical safety alerts to the public, operates over AM radio stations.”

Markey urges automakers to find a way to fix the interference rather than eliminate the service altogether.

“I don’t think they’ve properly estimated how much people trust and want to have AM radio available in their cars,” Sharon Tinsley, president of the Alabama Association of Broadcasters, told Nexstar’s WIAT.