"Max Power" ) writes:
US lack of SW receivers in cars: potentially a 1930s-1940s decision to stop
'creeping socialism'...

I believe the decision on SW dates back that far, and there were certainly
adequate arguments for this based on the economies of scale at the time and
the overall quality of SW receivers.

Back in 1930, formal broadcasting was only a decade old. I'm not sure
when car radios started appearing (as opposed to someone putting their
own radio in a car), but it was either a recent thing at that point, or
not yet happening. In 1921, shortwave wasn't even seen as a viable thing.
Hams had been relegated to 200 meters and down, ie above the current
AM broadcast band. IN December of 1921, they proved that the shortwave
frequencies that had been dismissed as useless could be useful, spanning
the Atlantic in tests, twenty years after Marconi had shown radio]
waves could span the Atlantic.

Given the times, I suspect one really good reason for no shortwave,
beyond the lack of shortwave stations, was that cars were way too noisy.
A lot of work has been done on reducing the noise generated by cars in
more recent decades. Back then, it would have been up to the installer,
and that would be costly.

Shortwave has always been a relatively small thing in North America.
IN the early days of radio, there was no such thing as broadcasting,
but then it was all in the lower frequencies. By the time radio had
grown up, separated into specific services, the average radio listener
was only interested in local broadcasts. Those with shortwave receivers
were either licensed radio amateurs, or hobbyists. SUre, shortwave
bands appeared from time to time on home radios, but they were in a minority
compared to those that were AM broadcast band only.

Add all this up, and there was little reason to have shortwave in
car radios. If people weren't listening at home, there's even less
reason to have it in the car.

Shortwave in car radios exists because in some areas of the world,
shortwave is a more significant factor. IN Europe, at the very least
they have countries close together so there may be more interest
in hearing their neighbors, and of course those signals will be
stronger. I gather in Africa, shortwave has traditionally taken
the place of medium wave broadcasting. For that matter, given
the colonization of Africa, there may have been many who wanted to
have "news from home", ie a higher level of interest in shortwave
in the first place, so there was demand for shortwave car radios.

But in North AMerica, the interest is relatively small.

No, there's no reason to believe censorship was an issue.

Michael