When is the last time you listened to AM radio? If you’re like most people, the answer is probably: in the car. But now, some carmakers want to leave AM radio out of their newest electric cars. Today, we’ll talk about the pros and cons of that choice.
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. AM radio is not usually trending. But today, we’re going to talk about carmakers who are quietly leaving AM radio out of their new electric vehicles—and we’ll ask whether this is a good idea or not. In the second half of today’s episode, I’ll show you how to talk about an advantage someone has in a competition. What do you have going for you?
This is lesson 652 of Plain English, which means JR has uploaded the full transcript and exercises to PlainEnglish.com/652.
Carmakers drop AM radio from their EV’s
Cars and radio just seem to go together. It hasn’t always been that way. Early cars didn’t come with radios. Though Chevrolet put a radio in a car in 1922, most people thought they were dangerous distractions. Some U.S. states even proposed banning them. But by the 1940s, the combination caught on . And for many decades, people got in the car and instinctively turned on the radio.
Now, though, times are changing—slowly. Many people do listen to radio broadcasts in the car; in fact , for many people, the car is the one place they still listen to traditional radio. But increasingly , people listen to streaming music, podcasts, and audiobooks in the car. If they do tune into a radio broadcast, they often opt for an FM station.
Still, an AM antenna is a cheap part and carmakers are happy to include it in new vehicles, even if most drivers don’t need or want it.
But there’s one big exception to that: electric vehicles. The electric current that drives the motor in electric cars interferes with the AM radio signal, adding a lot of additional static. For that reason, AM radio is just less useful and less pleasant to listen to in an electric car—and this as fewer and fewer people even tune in to AM radio in the first place . And so carmakers like BMW, Tesla, Volvo, and Volkswagen have decided not to include AM radios in their new electric cars, figuring that it wouldn’t cause much of a fuss.
They were wrong. AM radio is not sexy or new: it’s a century-old technology without any recent improvements. But it does still play an important role in daily life for many people. And lawmakers, broadcasters, and other activists are pushing back on the removal of AM radio.
To understand why, let’s take a look at who listens to AM radio, and how it’s different from FM radio. Before we do this, I should point out that broadcast spectrum is regulated by national governments, so the details might be different where you live. But I’ll tell you how it works in the U.S. and Canada.
Start with the basics. The physics of AM and FM radio affect their signals. AM radio covers a wider area with a lower-quality signal. FM radio covers a smaller area, but the sound quality is higher. AM radio signals can be heard hundreds of miles away, especially on clear nights. Even the most remote areas of the U.S. and Canada are within reach of AM stations at night.
The most remote towns might not have good cell service; they might not have high-speed internet; they might not have broadcast television stations or FM radio stations. But they can get AM radio.
Listening preferences have changed over the years . While AM radio was the original way to listen to the “wireless,” the FM signal has become more popular lately.
In the U.S. and Canada, FM has typically been for music, while AM has typically been more oriented toward news, talk, and sports. But these days, the big city news and talk stations simulcast on FM—so listeners in big cities can stay on the FM band to get their news and sports.
But AM radio still has several things going for it . AM radio is the cheapest way to get a broadcast license for niche operators. Broadcasters who can’t pay for pricier FM spectrum, they make their homes on AM. Foreign-language, religious, minority, cultural, and educational broadcasts can all be found on the AM band. AM stations are more likely to be owned by black, immigrant, or minority owners than FM or television broadcast stations are. Some rural regions have no newspaper or TV station, so the AM radio station is the only truly local source of news.
The government also uses AM radio for emergency announcements. Today, the fastest way to reach the most people is with an emergency alert on cell phones—but that won’t reach everyone. AM radio is still a good way to reach older people, those in more rural areas, and those without access to cell phones.
There’s a political angle, too. In the U.S., AM radio is popular with right-wing broadcasters. In the 1980s, AM radio stations began broadcasting opinion-based content with a definite right-wing viewpoint. Listeners who were unhappy with the left-wing orientation of major television broadcasters: they found a home listening to national and local talk show hosts on AM radio.
So by removing AM radio from their new cars, carmakers have raised the ire of a whole host of constituents: religious and foreign-language broadcasters; safety advocates; advocates for the elderly and rural population; and right-wing talk radio broadcasters and listeners. Some U.S. lawmakers are now proposing a requirement to keep AM radio in new cars.
This issue makes for some strange bedfellows . Sean Hannity is a right-wing talk radio host with over 17 million weekly listeners. He’s not normally in favor of government intervention in private business. But on this, he’s fully aligned with the left-wing U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey. Both want a government requirement to save AM radio in new cars.
They say that carmakers should work harder to find a way to shield the AM antenna from interference from the car’s electronics. It is technically possible. Stellantis, which makes Chrysler and Jeep cars, and Kia have both used shielded cables and design tweaks to make AM radio work in electric vehicles. Other brands, such as Volkswagen, have said it’s not worth the expense.
The controversy over AM radio in electric cars is a bit of a farce, though. AM’s advantages are in precisely the places where people are not buying electric cars. Nobody driving through the mountains in Wyoming or the remote areas of Alberta is doing so in an electric car. And they’re still putting AM radios in gas-powered cars.
Jeff’s take
I don’t know where I stand. I don’t generally think it’s a good idea for the government to require an old technology stay in place just because some people like it today. That sounds like standing in the way of progress.
But there is something to the safety argument. It’s not fun to think about truly terrible possibilities, but sometimes those old, simple technologies are the ones that work in an emergency. There could be a war in space, satellites could be knocked out, undersea internet cables could be cut, we could be the victim of cyberwarfare. You can’t always count on television, the internet, cell phone signals, things like that.
Plus, what about a hurricane, a blackout, a nuclear accident—AM radio could be like the last resort to get information out to people if the modern systems go down. But is the best answer to burden carmakers with a requirement to put an AM antenna in every new electric car? I don’t know. I’m not convinced.
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