Ford reverses plan to ditch AM radio after congressional attention

Enlarge (credit: Ford)

Today is just an AM-tastic day, isn't it? Earlier this morning, we reported on industry pushback against congressional plans to mandate AM radios in all new cars. The topic has been building for some time now—Tesla and BMW dropped AM radio from new electric vehicles some years ago—but it made headlines again in February when Ford revealed that the 2024 Mustang would lose the ability to pick up AM. Well, Ford has changed the channel on its decision and will restore AM radio to its place on the dashboard.

The move was announced by Ford CEO Jim Farley, who took to Twitter with the news.

Although AM radio is mostly used by its adherents to listen to talk radio, sports, and local traffic, a bipartisan collection of Senators and Representatives introduced a bill last week to mandate the inclusion of AM radio in all new cars so they can receive messages in the case of an emergency. That argument evidently proved compelling:

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from arstechnica.