Components in an electric vehicle create electromagnetic interference (EMI) with the AM signal; this EMI can't be stopped, but it can be reduced to reasonable levels with things like shielded cables, component placement, and active noise cancellation. In recent years, a growing number of automakers have chosen to skip the effort by eliminating AM radio from their EVs. Ford went further, planning to eliminate AM radio in all of its vehicles starting with the 2024 Mustang. In response, a growing number of opponents want AM radio restored. The public battle to save AM in the U.S. heated up late last year when Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass, wrote a letter urging all automakers to address the EM shielding issues and preserve AM radio. Since then, both houses of Congress have drafted bills with bipartisan support to require AM radio in EVs.
An unnamed automaker told the Center for Automotive Research that the cost of shielding cables could be $35 to $50 per vehicle, and the cost of filtering could be $15 to $20. In addition to these costs being passed on to consumers, the extra equipment could add weight, which could reduce range.
Assuming automakers sell an average of 8 million EVs per year in the U.S. from 2024 to 2030, that's a total of 56 million units - a huge number that exceeds the wildest adoption forecasts. Dividing the potential cost by the number of units, $3.8 billion by 56 million, comes to an average of $67.86 per vehicle, right in line with estimates if the number of units were that absurdly high. However, there is no information on where the CAR number came from.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), tasked with forecasting the costs of congressional bills, derived a much lower cost. The CBO's cost breakdown of Senate bill 1669, AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023, says, "Based on sales data, this would require manufacturers to update media equipment and infotainment software in about 2.5 to 3 million EVs per year. Because the unit costs of those updates are small, CBO estimates the total cost of the mandate would be several millions of dollars each year the requirement is in effect." Atop those costs comes the governmental outlay for bill implementation and enforcement, the agency writing, "The CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost [Department of Transportation] and [General Accounting Office] a total of $1 million over the 2024-2028 period."
It should be noted that the bills do not specify an implementation date, which is currently years in the future. Also, one version of the bill exempts automakers that produce less than 40,000 units per year.
It will all come down to which side can convince the most legislators. Automakers say there are alternatives to AM radio, and that there are more and better ways to communicate with the public in an emergency than terrestrial AM radio. The National Association of Broadcasters says 82 million Americans listen to AM stations each month, while Ford says the numbers it's getting from its Internet-connected vehicles show that AM radio use accounts for less than 5% of in-car listening time. Still, a good number of politicians say their constituents are demanding terrestrial AM.
Source: Autoblog
