While it is true that there are other modes of emergency communications, AM radio relies on nearly zero infrastructure integrity. As long as a broadcast statio

While it is true that there are other modes of emergency communications, AM radio relies on nearly zero infrastructure integrity. As long as a broadcast station has diesel or batteries and hasn’t burned to the ground, it can continue to deliver urgent and life saving information to millions of people over hundreds of kilometers, despite the complete failure of all other intermediary infrastructure. An high quality AM radio costs about 25 cents to integrate into existing infotainment systems, plus the cost of the coax and antenna. Realistically speaking, we are talking about less than 5 dollars in additional expense at scale. That’s cheap for a communication system that is extremely robust in the face of the worst possible types of disasters and emergencies. Cell phone and data networks are fragile by comparison and subject to congestion and other issues. An AM radio in every cellphone would be a software-only fix, as long as you used the headphone or charging cable as an antenna lead. Software defined radio means just about any modern microcontroller can act as a radio receiver over a broad spectrum of wavelengths for Pennie’s in additional components. This is about capture of the infotainment environment in vehicles, not the one to five dollars needed to include AM broadcast technology.