AM Radio: Any problems?

Apparently the BMW i3 has no AM radio at all, since BMW decided that the reception is too poor to justify its inclusion. Speculation surrounds the use of carbon fiber rather than metal in the body.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098893_bmw-i3-electric-car-quirk-no-am-radio--but-why

In the comments about this I've seen some claims that AM is also poor in other EVs. Has anyone noticed this in the Spark EV?

Perhaps BMW doesn't like right wing or sports talk, that seems to be the majority of AM programming these days. :twisted:

Seriously, it's been years since I've had a good AM radio in a gas, hybrid, or electric car. It's as if nobody cares about AM anymore. I doubt if it is anything to do with the electrification of the car, my location would be considered fringe for reception and the static I get has no relationship to motor speed, state of charge, or rate of accel/decel.

AM works as good or better than in my other cars.

Works fine for me. I'm always listening to the traffic and news on AM stations. I'm glad they didn't exclude it.

Carney said:

Apparently the BMW i3 has no AM radio at all, since BMW decided that the reception is too poor to justify its inclusion. Speculation surrounds the use of carbon fiber rather than metal in the body.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1098893_bmw-i3-electric-car-quirk-no-am-radio--but-why

In the comments about this I've seen some claims that AM is also poor in other EVs.

Click to expand...

AM radio works fine in my Leaf. I sometimes do use it.

Someone tried using a portable AM radio in their i3. Results at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Kym1eGpQ4.

Some folks have enabled the i3's AM radio (the hardware's there) via "coding" (seems to be via the use some of some leaked internal BMW software and an OBD2 cable) but I've gotten conflicting reports on whether the interference is as bad as the above portable radio case. A few claim it works fine while driving while most others claims it's unlistenable while driving, so it's no wonder BMW disabled it.

Probably also has to do with the antenna placement. BMW i3 is RWD so the motors are in the back, where the antenna is. Spark EV has motors in front and antenna in back. Total opposite directions.

In my spark ev I get some interference on some weake am stations as well as when driving by some power lines that have dirty insulation tips creating rf interference. Beats why power companies don't fix that as it costs them money loosing electricity via stray currents and rfi

When I bought the spark I actually took a handheld multi and receiver with me to measure any interference. The sales guy thought I was from some government agency or so. And yes there was significant rf created by the cars electronics. This was measured inside the car. Antennas are usually outside the car and technically the cars electronic noise should be shielded fromwith the metal body if all panels are properly electrically connected.