The Electric Car Could Finally Put AM Radio Out To Pasture

There’s a long way to go before the electric car revolution even comes close to the version that currently exists in everybody’s heads. Getting enough rare-Earth minerals to ramp up EV production at the scale most have in mind will be a big challenge. Then there are other issues related to safety thanks to EVs’ incredible acceleration combined with higher-end EVs incredible weight.

One less dramatic challenge created by the inevitable ascension of the EV has emerged: vehicles don’t always play well with AM radio. As a result, many automakers are considering eliminating AM radio from electric vehicles entirely, marking the end of, or at least some meaningful shrinkage in, overall AM radio usage.

Since EVs generate more electromagnetic interference than gas-powered cars, they can potentially disrupt the reception of AM signals causing static, noise and an annoying hum. This could be managed with shielding cables, filters and careful placement of the electrical components, but Tesla, Audi, Porsche, Volvo, and Volkswagen have found it more economical to cull AM radio functionality from EVs entirely.

FM radio doesn’t appear to have the same interference issues and should be safe. But AM broadcasters aren’t particularly thrilled about it, often arguing that AM radio remains an important communications medium for minority communities and during emergencies:

“It’s a killer for us because most of our listening audience is in the morning drive and afternoon drive, when people are going to work and coming from work — and if we’re not there in their car, we’re nonexistent,” said Ron January, operations manager at WATV-AM, an adult contemporary station in Birmingham, Ala.

Roughly 47 million Americans, or around 20 percent of the total U.S. public, still listen to AM radio, whether it’s religious programming, actual local community news, or right-wing propaganda. But between AM’s aging core userbase, AM radio’s steady decline in Europe, and the shift away from it in EVs, the medium’s days as a mainstream technology could be numbered.