Ashtrays Snuffed-Out

NEW YORK--The Associated Press wire service has moved a feature story--check your local newspaper--discussing the snuffing-out of the built-in automobile ashtray. Cigarette lighters, too, have been extinguished.

The piece, written by AP business writer Adam Geller, reports that “Honda and other manufacturers are designing ashtrays and lighters out of many new models, both to please consumers and cut costs.

“The move to smokeless cars started at Chrysler, whose 1995 Cirrus and Dodge Stratus sedans were the first to be sold without ashtrays as standard equipment. Other car makers have seized on the idea, and even in cars still equipped for smoking, ashtrays are smaller than ever,” according to the dispatch.

“You respond to consumer demand,” the story quotes Art Garner, a spokesman for American Honda Motor Co. “Consumers say, ‘I don’t need an ashtray. What I would like is a little storage place here. I don’t need a lighter. What I would like is a place to plug in my cellphone,’” the piece says.

Eliminating lighters and ashtrays as standard equipment on millions of cars also saves money for automakers, most who now sell optional “smoker’s packages” for $15 to $100 for items once included with every new car. In the Odyssey and other Hondas, buyers can order an ash container that drops into cup holders and a lighter that pops into the socket now called a “power point,” according to the AP.

“We’re always looking to cut costs and eliminate things people don’t want,” said Bill George, a spokesman for Ford Motor Co., which has eliminated the accessories as standard equipment in only a few of its models. “We don’t want to put anything in there that people don’t want or aren’t going to use,” the story quotes George.

The changes reflect a continuing evolution in auto dashboards and interiors, said Jeffrey Rose, vice president of technology at Textron Automotive Co., according to the AP.

“Travelers in the 1950s and ‘60s were never far from an ashtray--many cars came with both lighters and ashtrays fitted into every door. But that was before the arrival of multiple cup holders and storage spaces, switches for power windows and door locks, outlets for cell phones and amenities like garage-door openers fitted into sun visors,” Geller wrote.

In the future, car interiors will be fashioned of materials that customers can choose according to their preferences, not just for color but for texture and even smell, and will be designed with Global Positioning Systems and computer interfaces, Rose said, according to the story.

But the host of new electronic amenities puts the squeeze on space, and ashtrays are partly a casualty, he said.

“The truth is, not a lot has been taken out, and just tons more has been put in,” Rose told the wire service. “That’s what everybody is concerned about--information overload in the interior.”

“Removing ashtrays and lighters as standard equipment has been made easier because of the decline in the number of people who smoke, now a little more than one in five adults,” Geller wrote, adding that even some nonsmokers have noticed the disappearance of lighters and ashtrays.