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GM No Longer Installing HD Radios

HD disappeared from a lot of car radios due to COVID-era chip shortages, and afterwards they never saw a reason to re-implement a feature that nobody missed when it was gone.
The new excuse now is that chip manufacturers are bogged down with orders for chips used with AI, so chips designed for other purposes, such as tuner chips, are getting expensive to produce.
 
Says who? As far as I can tell the "excuse" is that HD Radio is a feature buyers don't care about.
This is really it. Further, it's been largely abandoned by the larger companies. For a time, iHeart, Audacy (and predecessor companies) and others really made a variety of formats available on their HD Channels. There was no effort to incentivize automakers to include receivers and the window to get critical mass adoption has passed. If consumers aren't clamoring for it and the automakers aren't being greased to include it, it's an easy target to be cut.
 
Automakers will do anything to save a buck. GM made 4-door sedans with rear windows that don't roll down, and advertised as it as a good thing because "the wind won't blow in your face" (3:12 in the video):

Wow, that is 12 minutes of visual cringe. Even when new those cars looked like cheap garbage. A sobering reminder of the nadir of Detroit automakers in the 1970s.🤮

Of course anything will look bad on grungy 16mm film.😱🤣
 
The Audi has SiriusXM, but the free trial expired. It was a used car too so I don’t know how it came with a free trial, I thought those were just for new cars. It also has Apple CarPlay.
SiriusXM pulls sale records from dealers and activate the head units for trials and sell the data on to other buyers


 
Complaints over automakers turning every feature into a subscription service and eliminating radio listening options are going to seem like nothing compared to the things they're planning next:




(or https://nitter.net/realericmoutsos/status/2051315786825011680 for those without an X account)

 
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Garbage like this basically guarantees that I'll never own a new car.

It seems like 2017or so is the last year that cars didn't have junk like this.

c
Keep in mind that just because it is "reported" by someone on social media doesn't mean it is true. So it might be a good idea to treat those alleged news stories with a certain degree of cynicism unless they are verified by some more reliable sources.

That said, certain driver assist features (notably, lane keep and auto steer functions) do seem to require some sort of driver monitoring. That monitoring can be as simple as touch sensors on the steering wheel to ensure that your hands are on the steering wheel, or it can be a camera that confirms your eyes are on the road. I don't mind the former, but am not so fond of the latter.
 
HD disappeared from a lot of car radios due to COVID-era chip shortages, and afterwards they never saw a reason to re-implement a feature that nobody missed when it was gone.
When was the last time you heard a commercial hyping the attributes of HD? It seems as if the traditional AM/FM industry forgot its new service -- hardly the way to battle 33 million SXM subscribers.
 
When was the last time you heard a commercial hyping the attributes of HD? It seems as if the traditional AM/FM industry forgot its new service

Traditional AM/FM doesn't have any ownership of HD. It's a trademarked technology owned by a private company that gets paid royalties anytime anyone uses their circuit. Nobody on the AM/FM side get anything from that.

These stations gain more by hyping their podcasts, their streaming services, and their smart speaker information.

The competition for AM/FM radio isn't satellite anymore. It's the internet.
 
Yet, K-LOVE just added HD Radio to several stations (including Air 1 affiliates). K-LOVE believes they can use HD to spread the love of Jesus, even though car manufacturers are waning away from it.
Or is it just a setup to add 2-3 more FM translators in every market with K-LOVE 2000s, K-LOVE Eras, and Nueva Vida?
 
Yet, K-LOVE just added HD Radio to several stations (including Air 1 affiliates). K-LOVE believes they can use HD to spread the love of Jesus, even though car manufacturers are waning away from it.
Or is it just a setup to add 2-3 more FM translators in every market with K-LOVE 2000s, K-LOVE Eras, and Nueva Vida?
Just what we need...

As it is, there's hardly a single person anymore who isn't within range of at least two K-Love signals (maybe an exaggeration, maybe not). Why do they need more?!

c
 
I live in a smaller market town with more FM stations that are really needed, and yet with the 18-20+ stations they have, None of them have HD subchannels.

I leased a 2026 Kia K4 and I've had it for nearly a year. Today was the first time I've realized it had HD radio. The first encounter was passing through a much smaller town than mine, Price, UT (one station had 2 HD subchannels) and then once I hit Salt Lake City, I was amazed at how many stations had HD-subs.
 
I was surprised in my cousin's new ford truck did not have HD Radio. It had Sirius of course.
 
When was the last time you heard a commercial hyping the attributes of HD? It seems as if the traditional AM/FM industry forgot its new service -- hardly the way to battle 33 million SXM subscribers.
HD Radio was not intended to combat satellite radio. It was intended to counter digital audio services.

33 million satellite subscribers does not compare very well with this: "The U.S. has over 282 million registered vehicles as of 2026, with an ownership rate of approximately 0.85 vehicles per person. The market is dominated by SUVs and light trucks," (Google AI)
 
Why do they need more?!
They need more because they want each of their services to eventually reach every person in the United States and its territories.
 


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