Ford has just patented a technology that they hope will cure the 'noisy AM radio in the EV' problem.
It's called an Enhanced Radio Access System. As best as I can understand it, the EV's tuner does not access the radio station's transmission directly. The signal is picked up by a remote receiver site which, in turn, sends it to a server. The server then digitally beams the signal to the car. The end result is noise-free AM. The digital EV tuner sends "calls" to the server for whatever station the motorist wants to hear and the server responds by trying to find that station by whatever means are available. I'm assuming if the station had a web stream, the server would probably try to send that first.
The tuner is designed to receive a wide variety of signal sources, including cellular networks, over-the-air broadcast and V2X (vehicle-to-everything) communication. No mention of HD Radio. The really interesting thing is that the tuner works with ATSC. This may be where 3.0 can find its niche, serving EVs with noise-free radio. Ford is also proposing this method for FM......end quote.
Here's the problem. It's not really over the air AM radio. It converts it to a stream type thing that needs a subscription you pay for. Since the system is patented it just makes more money for the car maker and they don't want you to have free over the air radio. That's the bottom line. To hell with them. How come Kia and Hyundai can make AM radio work fine in their EV cars but Ford and Tesla won't? So they can make more money on you. Free over the air radio should be available to all and not taken away so billionaires can make more billions.
What Ford is doing is not AM radio. It's like cable TV but radio by wi fi. Someone receives the radio signal, re-transmits it through wi fi and charges you $$ for it. We have a right to freedom of the airwaves. Keep regular radio in cars.