House to Vote on AM Radio Mandate for New Cars, What It Could Mean for Vehicle Prices
A bill requiring AM radio in every new car, including EVs, heads to a House vote this month, automakers warn it could raise costs, though no price tag has been set.
What’s actually happening
The House is set to vote the week of September 14 on the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, a bill that would force every new vehicle sold in the U.S., gas or electric, to come with a working AM radio receiver as standard equipment. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has scheduled the standalone vote, according to The Desk. The bill, known as H.R. 979 in the House and S. 315 in the Senate, already has more than 370 combined co-sponsors and is backed by an unusual bipartisan foursome: Representatives Gus Bilirakis and Frank Pallone, and Senators Ted Cruz and Ed Markey.
This isn’t a new idea, it’s been kicking around Congress for a couple of years, but a scheduled floor vote is the furthest it’s gotten. If it passes the House and Senate and gets signed into law, automakers would no longer be allowed to quietly drop AM receivers from new models the way several have started doing, especially on EVs, where the electric motors can interfere with AM signal quality.
Why this touches your wallet
Nobody in this story has put a dollar figure on what an AM radio mandate would add to a car’s sticker price, and that matters, because the argument against the bill is entirely about cost, not content. The Consumer Technology Association says requiring AM hardware forces manufacturers to build in extra shielding or components to fight electromagnetic interference, particularly in EVs, and that engineering isn’t free. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation makes a related point: automakers already deliver emergency alerts through cellular wireless systems, satellite radio and internet audio apps, so a hardware mandate is, in their view, solving a problem that’s already solved elsewhere, at a cost automakers would have to absorb or pass along.
On the other side, the National Association of Broadcasters and its members say AM’s value is precisely that it doesn’t depend on cell towers, satellites or an internet connection, all of which can go down in a hurricane, wildfire or grid failure, when rural listeners especially may have nothing else. NAB President Curtis LeGeyt called on lawmakers to “finish the job” now that a vote is finally scheduled.
Who pays, and how much
Right now, nobody can tell you the per-vehicle cost with any confidence, because no official estimate has been published in this reporting. What’s clear is the dispute: broadcasters say the safety case justifies whatever the cost turns out to be, while tech and auto trade groups argue new mandates always show up somewhere on a build sheet, and build sheets show up on window stickers.
For car shoppers, especially EV buyers, this is worth watching rather than reacting to. Nothing changes at your local dealership yet. The bill still needs to clear the House, then the Senate, then get signed, and even then, implementation would take time.
What to do about it
There’s no action to take today. If you’re EV shopping in the next few months, this bill won’t affect the vehicle you buy right now. The thing to track: whether the House vote passes this month, and whether any cost estimate from automakers or the Congressional Budget Office eventually attaches a real number to the mandate. If a price shows up, that’s the number that will actually land on your invoice, not the political fight over AM radio itself.