Throttle Weekly Issue 43: AM Radio's House Vote, McLaren's First SUV, and 345 Demon 170s Told to Stay Parked
A House vote to keep AM radio in every new car, McLaren's first SUV, Nissan's e-POWER Rogue Hybrid, and a Dodge service notice covering 345 Demon 170s lead this week's sourced car digest.
The week in one pass
Coverage: September 15–23, 2026.
The House passed a bill that would put an AM radio in every new car sold in the United States, and much of the car industry spent the week explaining why that requirement is hardest to meet in an electric vehicle. McLaren confirmed it will build its first SUV, backed by half a billion pounds from Abu Dhabi. Nissan put its e-POWER hybrid into the Rogue, the compact crossover it sells more of than anything else. Dodge told 345 owners of its most powerful muscle car to stop driving it. NASCAR's playoff race at Bristol ended with Joey Logano in victory lane and his teammate swinging at a rival on pit road, and BMW took IMSA's Indianapolis round away from Cadillac in the final five minutes. A McLaren P1, a Ferrari LaFerrari and a Porsche 918 Spyder are heading to a single auction in October, and a small Ohio museum is closing because the man who kept its carburetors running has retired.
- Industry: H.R. 979, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025, cleared the House by voice vote on September 15 and reached the Senate the next day; BMW, Tesla, Mazda, Volkswagen and Rivian have already dropped AM from their EVs. McLaren's first SUV arrives inside a £500 million investment that expands United Kingdom manufacturing and brings powertrain development in-house. The 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid brings the e-POWER series drivetrain to Nissan's best-selling model at $37,065 to $45,065. Dodge is telling the owners of 345 Demon 170s to leave them parked over a crankshaft damper fault that has already caused field failures. 1234
- Trackside and community: At Bristol, Joey Logano won his 40th Cup Series race by diving under two cars fighting for the lead with seven laps left, and Kyle Larson took the championship lead by a single point over Denny Hamlin. At Indianapolis, Sheldon van der Linde passed Earl Bamber with about five and a half minutes to go and won IMSA's penultimate round by 2.926 seconds, keeping the title fight alive into Petit Le Mans. 56
- Explainer: AM radio encodes sound by varying the strength of its signal, which is why an electric motor's switching noise lands on top of it while FM shrugs it off. Federal rules exempt car electronics from the pre-market interference checks that other radio devices go through, so the fix is a design problem each automaker solves alone. 7
- Car culture: A 2015 McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder will cross the block in the same Broad Arrow sale in Belgium on October 9. Snook's Dream Cars in Bowling Green, Ohio, is closing after 24 years and auctioning its collection because its mechanic is retiring and no replacement could be found. 89
Industry news
An AM radio bill clears the House and lands in the Senate
The House passed the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025 on September 15 by voice vote, and the Senate received H.R. 979 the following day, read it twice and placed it on its legislative calendar. 10 The bill directs the Department of Transportation to write a rule requiring automakers to fit broadcast AM receivers in vehicles made or sold in the United States. That rule and its enforcement authority would sunset ten years after enactment, and the department would have to study AM radio's role in emergency alerts at least once every five years alongside the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Communications Commission. 7
The argument for the bill is about emergencies rather than entertainment. The United States had 4,367 AM stations operating as of March 31, 2025, and Nielsen figures cited by Car and Driver put more than 80 million Americans listening to AM radio every month, roughly 23 percent of the population. AM also sits near the front of the federal alert chain: 62 of the 72 Primary Entry Point stations, which hold a direct connection to FEMA, broadcast on AM. 17
Automakers have already removed AM from many electric vehicles. BMW left it out of its EVs from the 2014 i3 onward, Tesla dropped the band in 2018, and Mazda, Volkswagen and Rivian have gone the same way. Toyota, Chevrolet and Ford still fit AM radio to at least some of their electric models. 1
The Senate still has to pass the bill and the president has to sign it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the requirement would cover roughly 2 to 2.5 million vehicles a year and cost the federal government about $1 million over five years. Updating the radio hardware would be cheap, the CBO found, because most EVs already carry an FM tuner; the open question is what it costs an automaker to engineer around interference that jams the signal in the first place. 1
McLaren's first SUV arrives with half a billion pounds behind it
McLaren Automotive confirmed on September 16 that it will build a sport utility vehicle, the first in its 63-year history, as the headline product of a £500 million investment — about $672 million — from shareholder L'IMAD, a sovereign investment company owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. 211
Most of the money goes into making things. McLaren plans a new vehicle assembly facility in the United Kingdom and expansion at its Production Centre in Woking and its McLaren Composites Technology Centre in South Yorkshire, adding to a design centre in Bicester and a testing facility in the Midlands that have already opened. The company says the plan creates at least 1,000 jobs by 2032 and doubles its manufacturing workforce. 2
The powertrains change too. For the first time, McLaren will design and build its own engines and transmissions in-house, starting with two new hybrid units. Chief executive Nick Collins said customers want high-performance hybrids rather than pure electric cars, and McLaren describes hybrid technology as the continuation of the formula it began with the P1 hypercar. 11
The SUV will be McLaren's first four-door, five-seat model and is expected to compete with the Aston Martin DBX, the Bentley Bentayga and the Lamborghini Urus, aimed at Formula 1 followers who need more space than a two-seat supercar offers. McLaren has released no specification for it. Automotive News separately reported that the entry-level Artura will be retired in 2028 and replaced by a mid-engined car codenamed P34 by the end of 2027, expected to keep a twin-turbo V6 hybrid and produce around 800 horsepower. 211
Nissan puts its e-POWER hybrid into the Rogue
The 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid reaches dealers this fall with the fourth-generation body, which the internal-combustion Rogue will wait until the 2028 model year to get. The drivetrain is the unusual part in the American market. A 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine making 148 horsepower runs as a generator, and two permanent-magnet electric motors drive the wheels with a combined 225 horsepower. Every early Rogue Hybrid is all-wheel drive, and its battery takes energy from the engine and from regenerative braking alone. 3
Nissan's own testing puts the Rogue Hybrid at 38 mpg combined, 40 in the city and 36 on the highway. Prices run $37,065 for the SV, $39,065 for the SR and $45,065 for the Platinum. Nissan says the engine reaches 42 percent thermal efficiency, and that this third generation of e-POWER is the first built specifically for North America. The company has sold nearly two million e-POWER drivetrains worldwide across 68 countries since 2016. 3
Autoweek drove the Rogue Hybrid and a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid back to back on the hills above Park City, Utah, and found the Nissan markedly quieter under acceleration, where the RAV4's four-cylinder turns harsh. The Rogue offers 31.1 cubic feet of cargo space behind the second row and 65.9 with it folded, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster that grows to 14.3 inches in upper trims, physical climate controls, and a head-up display on the Platinum. Nissan sold more than four million Rogues in the United States since the model arrived for 2008, and Rogue sales are up 29 percent year over year. 3
Dodge tells 345 Demon 170 owners to leave them parked
Dodge is asking the owners of 345 examples of the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 to stop driving them, including on the trip to the dealership. The fault lies in the crankshaft damper and its bolt on a batch of cars traced to a particular production window at the supplier, which means Dodge knows exactly which cars are affected and that their VIN numbers run non-sequentially. Owners may hear an unusual noise from the engine compartment; continuing to drive can then damage other engine components. 4
Dodge chief executive Matt McAlear told MoparInsiders the worst outcome is catastrophic engine damage, and the company has confirmed some failures in the field already, which is what prompted the investigation. The affected 345 cars amount to roughly 10 percent of the 3,300 Demon 170s Dodge built for 2023, a car that produces 1,025 horsepower from a supercharged 6.2-liter V8. 4
Dodge is handling the work through what it calls a Customer Service Notice, a campaign filed separately from its recall program. Owners can check their VIN through Mopar's online lookup tool, where the notice appears under the service-notice section. Dodge pays to transport an affected car to a dealership, covers the estimated two hours of repair, and covers the owner's ride home. 4
Trackside and community
Logano wins Bristol from fourth with seven laps left
Joey Logano won the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 19, the 40th Cup Series victory of his career and his third of the season, after diving to the bottom lane while Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar fought two-wide for the lead ahead of him. He crossed the line 1.248 seconds clear of Kyle Larson, in a race that ran 3 hours, 2 minutes and 20 seconds at an average speed of 87.697 mph, with 10 cautions covering 78 laps and 13 lead changes among six drivers. 5
The result rearranged the championship. Logano entered the Chase seeded ninth and 65 points behind Denny Hamlin, and left Bristol third, 16 points back. Larson took the points lead by one point over Hamlin, who had held it since late June, with Christopher Bell 17 behind in fourth. 5
The night's lasting image came after the checkered flag. On lap 458, while Blaney and Hocevar raced for second, Blaney cut down in front of Hocevar, who held his line, tagged Blaney and sent him spinning into the wall. Blaney finished 33rd and fell to sixth in the standings, 52 points behind. He walked to Hocevar on pit road afterwards and grabbed him by the firesuit; Hocevar threw a right hook, then another, and crew members pulled the two apart. It was the first pit-road confrontation of its kind since NASCAR fined Ricky Stenhouse Jr. $75,000 for starting a brawl at the 2024 All-Star Race. 512
NASCAR announced that Blaney, Hocevar and every crew member involved would escape penalties, a decision that leaves drivers to police one another. The sanctioning body's line is that using a race car as a weapon draws punishment, while a confrontation on pit road or in the garage does not. The Cup Series moves to Kansas Speedway on September 27. 13
BMW takes Indianapolis from Cadillac with five minutes left
Sheldon van der Linde passed Earl Bamber with about five and a half minutes remaining and won the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 20 by 2.926 seconds. The race was the penultimate round of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8's late move kept the drivers' title undecided. 6
Bamber and Jack Aitken had led in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac and needed a first or second place to protect their championship lead over the No. 6 Porsche Penske 963 before Petit Le Mans. The Cadillac finished second, which leaves the gap open into the season finale. The No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac came home fourth, ahead of the pole-sitting No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura in fifth. 6
The start was messy. A group of GTP and LMP2 cars tangled in the first corner, including all three Porsche 963s; the No. 7 car went to the garage for repairs and rejoined, while the No. 93 Acura was tagged in the next turn and sent to the back. In LMP2, Christen Rasmussen and Nick Boulle won by 23.117 seconds in the No. 18 Era Motorsports entry. In GTD Pro, Dennis Olsen held off Nick Catsburg by 0.243 seconds to take the No. 64 Ford Racing Mustang GT3 to the class win. 6
Van der Linde, whose co-driver is Dries Vanthoor, had been waiting for the result. "As soon as I got into the lead, I got goosebumps with three laps to go," he said. "You obviously try and stay composed for this, but we've waited so freaking long for this." 6
Explainer: why AM radio is the hard part of an electric car
AM and FM carry sound in different ways, and that difference decides which one survives contact with a battery pack. AM varies the amplitude of its carrier wave — how strong the signal is at any instant — while FM varies its frequency. A receiver tuned to AM is therefore reading small changes in signal strength, and anything in the neighbourhood that adds strength or takes it away arrives as noise. The Congressional Research Service puts AM broadcasts ahead of FM on susceptibility to interference from electronic devices, vehicle engines, power lines, phone chargers, light bulbs, computer monitors and flat-screen televisions. 7
An electric car places a large, fast-switching power source a few feet from the antenna. Car and Driver notes that the frequencies electric motors emit tend to jam AM stations. 1 BMW gave Senator Edward Markey's office its reasoning in December 2022: the company left analog AM broadcasting out of its electric and plug-in hybrid models beginning with the 2014 i3 because electromagnetic interference produced poor AM reception, and because other ways to hear the same programming had appeared. Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Rivian, Stellantis, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo all told Markey they agreed with BMW's assessment. Kia told the senator its EVs had shown no such problem. 7
One reason the problem was allowed to reach the road is regulatory. In 1980 the Federal Communications Commission exempted motor vehicle equipment from the authorization rules it applies to other devices that emit radio-frequency energy, an exemption that remains in place. NHTSA sets safety standards for vehicle electronics but does not pre-approve them. A car's inverter therefore reaches the road without anyone testing the noise it puts into the AM band. 7
The cost of fixing it is where the two sides of the argument part. A 2023 study by the Center for Automotive Research, commissioned by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, found that mitigating electromagnetic interference "depends upon the electrical architecture of the vehicle and entails several design and engineering tradeoffs." The National Association of Broadcasters countered that a software update or newer digital techniques would carry AM through the noise. Stellantis has moved its radio receivers farther from the electric motors, and an executive at the technology firm Xperi has suggested that digital AM broadcasts would better withstand the interference that analog ones cannot. 7
For a driver, the practical stakes arrive with the power grid. An EV with no AM tuner can play AM stations through a phone app for as long as the cellular network holds up, which is the arrangement several automakers point to as an adequate substitute. Seven former FEMA administrators wrote to the Secretary of Transportation in February 2023 asking him to secure assurances from automakers that they would keep AM radios in their vehicles, saying the loss of in-car AM reception could interfere with FEMA's ability to meet its obligations under federal law. 7
Collector corner
The Holy Trinity goes to one Belgian sale
Broad Arrow's Zoute Concours Auction on October 9, held during Zoute Grand Prix Week in Belgium, will offer a 2015 McLaren P1, a 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari and a 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder in the same catalogue — the trio collectors refer to as the Holy Trinity. All three have been driven, and each has a different story in its odometer. 8
The P1 is the least used of the three, a 2015 car in MSO Storm Grey with the Stealth Pack and a full Alcantara interior showing 293 kilometres, or 182 miles, and described as being in as-new, time-warp condition. Broad Arrow estimates it at €1.4 million to €1.8 million, or $1.6 million to $2 million. 8
The LaFerrari has travelled the furthest. This one is finished in Grigio Ferro Metallizzato with 13,069 kilometres, about 8,121 miles, on the clock, and has just had a new high-voltage battery fitted under warranty. Its estimate of €4 million to €5 million, or $4.5 million to $5 million, is the highest of the trio. 8
The 918 Spyder sits between them at 18,870 kilometres, or 11,727 miles, and carries the Weissach Package, a €60,000 option that saved 88 pounds through magnesium wheels with titanium bolts, lighter brakes and carbon-fibre aerodynamic parts. It wears an Individualfarbe paint-to-sample colour called Sport Classic Grey, originally developed for the 2010 911 Sport Classic, with an Espresso Leather-to-Sample interior. Expected price: €2.6 million to €3 million, or $2.98 million to $3.45 million. 8
The rest of the catalogue runs from a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT and a 1992 Jaguar XJ220 to a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, a 1984 Lamborghini Countach 5000 S and a one-off 2026 Ferrari Daytona Shooting Brake Hommage by Niels van Roij Design. Two oddities stand out: a 2000 BMW M5 built with a W-10 engine for Ferdinand Piëch, and a 1966 Citroën DS 21 Cabriolet Palm Beach by Henri Chapron. 8
The human-interest coda
A museum closes because the carburetor man retired
Snook's Dream Cars, a car museum in Bowling Green, Ohio, is closing after 24 years and selling its collection. Its resident mechanic, Terry Stetler, is retiring, and proprietor Jeff Snook could not find anyone else he trusted to keep the cars running. Fifteen of the museum's vehicles are listed on Hagerty's auction site, and the hammer falls on Monday, September 28 at 2:45 p.m. Eastern. The museum itself is scheduled to close the week of October 11. 9
Snook put the problem in plain terms to the Toledo Blade. "With him retiring, I haven't found anybody around that I would hire to be able to maintain the cars," he said. "Kids that come out of auto trade school, they don't know about carburetors and old car stuff. There's just a lack of knowledge out there because I think it's harder and harder to keep old cars on the road without qualified, skilled, professional mechanics." 9
The economics work against the job. Diagnosing an old car can be simpler than diagnosing a new one, since there are fewer parts and more room to reach them, but seized fasteners and carburetor tuning both reward experience, and a small museum pays less than a commercial service bay with a full schedule. The Drive's advice to anyone who loves old cars is to start learning the work, because shops willing to touch a carburetor and a set of distributor points are going to keep getting rarer. A free virtual tour of the museum is available online while the building is still standing. 9
References
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- 11Even McLaren Is Building an SUV Now
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