Tesla has removed FM and DAB from its cheapest new Model 3, a car heading to Australia, replacing broadcast tuners with a streaming app that needs a data connection. With 82% of Australians still listening to radio in the car each week, audio buyers should stop assuming the dashboard is a radio.
The Take: Tesla just pulled broadcast radio out of its cheapest new car, and that car is on its way to Australia. If your media plan still assumes the dashboard is a radio, check the assumption before the summer drive season. The receiver is becoming an option, not a fixture.
The cut: Tesla dropped FM and DAB from its new base Model 3 rear-wheel-drive, which lists at $45,900, around $9,000 below the trim that keeps them. Broadcast tuners give way to a streaming app that needs a live mobile-data connection and a $13.99 monthly connectivity pack. Lose the mobile signal and you lose the radio, including the emergency broadcasts that ride on it. Tesla stripped AM years ago, so this takes the last over-the-air tuners out of the cheapest Tesla on sale.
On the ground: This matters because the car is still radio's fortress. Commercial Radio and Audio says 82% of Australians listen to radio in the car every week and 77% tune in across AM, FM or DAB each month. Chief executive Lizzie Young has called on the Government to legislate so receivers stay in vehicles, the way it recently committed to radio prominence on smart speakers.
The stakes: Sit with the second step. Every tuner quietly removed at the factory shrinks the guaranteed in-car audience that broadcast radio sells against, even while weekly listening holds steady today. One carmaker is not a cliff. A precedent that trims cost for every other manufacturer is how the floor starts to move under you.
Australians who still listen to radio in the car every single week
For Australian operators: If radio sits in your plan for reach, ask your buyer what share of that reach depends on in-car listening. Build streaming audio and podcasts into the mix as the hedge against a dashboard that may lose its tuner within five years. Keep an eye on the push from Commercial Radio and Audio for an in-car mandate, because that fight decides whether this is a blip or the trend. One flat quarter of listening data is not a reason to assume the car stays a radio.