Which is also why I say this is more about Elon than it is about radio.
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Tesla removes radios from new entry-level EVs
- Thread starter Theater of My Mind
- Start date
Which is also why I say this is more about Elon than it is about radio.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Can I agree more than 100% with you on that, A?
It clearly did work, because Teslas did have AM radio until it got eliminated in the 2020 models.
That is, unless you paid up to $2000 for the "Infotainment Upgrade", which removed AM, FM, and SiriusXM from 2018 and older models. Paying an additional $500 on top of that for the "Radio Upgrade" restores FM and SiriusXM, but not AM:
Infotainment Upgrade | Tesla Support
Upgrade your Infotainment system to access new features, and for a more advanced and smoother user experience.
Now you know where BMW got the idea to make heated seats a monthly subscription. Stop paying, and your butt is cold.
People said that exact same thing when all of the radio shows went to TV, though. Ozzy & Harriet started as a radio show. It ended as a TV show. The same can be said about a large portion of popular entertainment programs on radio. They moved to TV.
In fact, there was a lot of concern in the 50s that radio would cease to remain profitable, especially as TV continued to penetrate the market. In 1950, 9% of American households had a TV. By 1960, that number was 90% (figures from Library of Congress Research Guides).
Did radio just keep trying to do the "Ozzy and Harriet" show, holding onto an audience that was shrinking and aging out? No. Station owners in the mid-50s could have said
television. But they didn't do that. They figured out new formats that would help draw listeners back to radio. Top-40 radio became a big teenage draw. MOR and BM formats attracted a more mature audience. Small-market stations doubled down and continued serving their COLs well. Stations invested in personalities that connected with their audience. Contests became a big draw for many stations, too. Without radio dramas and national shows from the likes of Bing Crosby and whatnot, radio still survived.
I'm not saying the current era is an exact parallel to the 50s, but I think there are a lot of similarities. The biggest difference seems to be on the part of station operators and their attitude.
And really? The people have to WANT to be brought to the airwaves? No. The airwaves need to have a product that people WANT.
Had radio kept airing dramas in 1960, people then would not have been tuning in. Radio had to find ways to keep listeners engaged. It always has needed to. It needs to give listeners a reason to tune in today even more than ever if it wants to remain relevant.
As far as the whole thing with AM reception being possible in EVs. Yes, it is. It's also a level of expense that the manufacturers ('cause Tesla isn't the only one not going it) don't want to go to given the user base of AM radio in EVs, etc.
Companies give bs reasoning for stuff all of the time. "Can't be done" could just as easily be "Can't be done profitably." Because to a big company, if it can't be done profitably, it can't be done. Just sayin'.
I bought a 50s house recently. Plumber who came to turn the well on during my home inspection told me that all of the original fixtures had to be replaced - they were all broken and none could be repaired. I've lived there several months now and almost every one of those fixtures works perfectly. All of the fixes required only parts from the hardware store and minimal time and effort on my part. I know others who have had similar experiences. Why did he tell me they couldn't be fixed? Probably for a lot of the same reasons Musk simply says that AM isn't possible in EVs. Companies say stupid stuff that helps their bottom line all of the time.
Companies give bs reasoning for stuff all of the time. "Can't be done" could just as easily be "Can't be done profitably." Because to a big company, if it can't be done profitably, it can't be done. Just sayin'.
I bought a 50s house recently. Plumber who came to turn the well on during my home inspection told me that all of the original fixtures had to be replaced - they were all broken and none could be repaired. I've lived there several months now and almost every one of those fixtures works perfectly. All of the fixes required only parts from the hardware store and minimal time and effort on my part. I know others who have had similar experiences. Why did he tell me they couldn't be fixed? Probably for a lot of the same reasons Musk simply says that AM isn't possible in EVs. Companies say stupid stuff that helps their bottom line all of the time.
The difference is the people continued to buy radios, and electronics manufacturers continued to come up with creative new devices. For example, the pocket transistor radio was created AFTER the introduction of TV. Before that, portable radios had tubes and were a lot bigger. The transistor made radios the size of a pack of cigarettes, and those new smaller devices made radio more portable than it had been. It completely changed the way people used radio. They couldn't take TV with them like radio. Of course now people can also watch TV on their phones, so the phone is also having an effect on how people watch TV.
A big part of this is that radio & TV were once considered "new technology" and the electronics companies that made radios and TVs also owned radio and TV stations. That's not the case anymore. New technology is digital, and the digital companies control the hardware. They're pushing their own digital streaming radio, and that's set the bar as to where radio needs to be. Sure, there still will be companies using traditional broadcast radio. It's not completely disappearing. But after 100 years, the platform has become dated, and all of us who work in it can see there are more opportunities if we see radio as a bigger thing than transmitters & towers.
Let's talk about that. Radio companies are investing in talent. Mainly talk show hosts from AM political talk to FM lifestyle talk. Take a look at some of the top rated radio stations, and they're the ones with well-known talent who people want to hear. The music aspect of radio has basically been eclipsed by streaming, mainly because the music itself has become more individual. Radio is one-to-many, so that system doesn't work as well when the music has become so personal.
Music changed in the 80s. Prior to that, a lot of popular music was made FOR the radio, because that's how music was marketed. That stopped in the 90s, when music companies got a digital royalty, and got paid by digital companies for the use of their music. That doesn't happen in broadcasting. So music companies were unleashed, and marketed music directly to consumers via streaming, and radio was left out of the process. That's really where we are now. Older music works well on the radio, because it was consensus music made for radio distribution. Current music works better for streaming because it's more individual.
So what I'm saying is there are a lot of factors and a lot of major changes that have happened in the last 30 years. They've affected traditional broadcasting. TV is affected as well. Where we are now is it's not one or the other, but all. Radio has to be everywhere, and that includes the phone.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And that is one explanation for why I have been saying all along that Classic Hits has its biggest challenge in trying to move forward from the 1980s. (The other is the fragmentation of CHR into genre-specific versions, which means not everyone "fondly remembers" the same set of songs ... and it only got worse once we crossed the century border, because the digital component to music sales and distribution was more entrenched by then.)
What I still find fascinating is that 80's-based Classic Hits is drawing younger demos in significant numbers to make the format no longer a "55+" foregone conclusion.
But now I have gone horribly off-topic and will shut up.
Yeah, I own a 2025 EV (Hyundai) and it also has zero difficulty in receiving AM. Before that, I had a Chevy Volt that basically functioned as an EV for 40 to 50 miles before a gas engine would kick in, and it also had no difficulty receiving AM. So, yeah, I think your response to Musk's claim is exactly right. But, frankly, Musk is full of it on a lot of subjects -- but those are topics for an EV forum, not a radio forum.
But regarding his decision to drop the radio from those bottom-end Teslas, I think it is fair to say that reflects the biases of the CEO and perhaps other managers at the company. Because Tesla does not come across as a company that spends a lot on market research to see what customer slike, but more like a company that just decides and gives it to the market. Sometimes that ends up working (much as I dislike the vehicle, the Model Y has sold very well) and sometimes it doesn't work (Cybertruck), but that's the way Tesla does it. So the decision to drop AM five years ago and the decision to drop FM this year should not be taken as an indication of the overall market. While people certainly listen to far less radio than they used to, every study that I've ever heard of indicates that most people do still use the radio in their cars on a regular basis, even though they also listen to non-radio sources as well.
Fortunately for the radio industry, Elon Musk and Tesla are far less influential in the automotive world than Steve Jobs and Apple were in consumer electronics. I suspect that if Apple had been willing to include a functioning FM tuner in their iPhones, we would still see phones today that include that feature. As it is, when the company that sells roughly half the cellphones in the United States shows that people will buy a phone without that FM tuner, it encouraged everyone else to follow. So FM tuners slowly started disappearing from Android phones, and when people switched to bluetooth headsets and the 1/8" jack disappeared, that killed it completely. (As an aside, AM tuners were never going to be in phones because the physical size of an AM antenna is too large and using the headphone cord just wouldn't work for AM.)
Meanwhile, GM announces it will phase out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in its full line of cars:
www.insideradio.com
What can we conclude here?
GM To Phase Out Apple CarPlay, Android Auto On All Cars.
General Motors has announced that its entire line of automobiles, including both gas-powered and electric vehicles, will phase out both Apple Car Play or Android Auto over the next several
What can we conclude here?
We can conclude that auto manufacturers want to monetize everything in the vehicles they build.
We can also conclude that I won't be buying a GM vehicle because of this, and I suspect I'm not alone.
Look at the difference between the cost of the new entry level Tesla and the former lowest priced one. It's around $5000 and it is really unlikely that they will sell many... most buyers will opt for a higher level that has much better features.
That GM will backpedal on this decision.Meanwhile, GM announces it will phase out Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in its full line of cars:
GM To Phase Out Apple CarPlay, Android Auto On All Cars.
General Motors has announced that its entire line of automobiles, including both gas-powered and electric vehicles, will phase out both Apple Car Play or Android Auto over the next several
What can we conclude here?
Not necessarily. GM's platform just needs to be really good.
If it provides one with the entertainment desired and the information needed in an efficient way, people will not care if it is CarPlay or whatever.
If it's glitchy and awkward, people will wonder why they messed with something that already worked. People will be really annoyed if the basic functionality that already exists with CarPlay and Android Auto come with a subscription fee in the GM ecosystem.
We tend to be biased (justifiably) because the auto industry does not have a particularly good reputation for building and deploying electronics. We shall see!!
GM doesn’t care about the user experience and it shows in their UI. They want control over the data nothing else.
I wonder how it will affect rental car fleet purchases.
One of the first things I do when I pick up a rental car (and I have had a lot in my recent travels!) is to find Android Auto and get my phone connected so that I am working from a familiar environment as I head off into an unfamiliar city.
The last thing I want is to also have to figure out an unfamiliar interface, especially one that requires some kind of subscription payment.
Which means that going forward, if the rental company offers me a Chevy, I will probably be asking for something else instead.
Me too. I just rented a Kia, and as usual, I start the car up, and the radio is on full blast. No indication on the screen how to turn it off or down. I found the volume control on the steering wheel instead of the dash. Welcome to Kia.
Yes, they've been pushing outrageously expensive Onstar for years, while Google Maps and Wayz are free and better.
I'm shopping for a new car and GM is not on my list.
Sometimes. In my family, we found learning the controls of one new car annoying enough that when the second needed replacement, we opted for the same brand. Now, when any of us drive either of the cars, it is easy to know how to find our wanted controls, audio settings and the like.
Again, if the use is considerably different, that can be annoying.
I have to say, when people are making their car buying decisions based more on the interior cab comprehensibility factor than the driving experience, it's safe to say automakers are losing their way.
You mean they will put it in reverse. Though if they keep driving people off, I can see how you would've unintentionally prognosticated that their future will be in bicycles.