Recently Amanda and I went car shopping. Now that Alexandar is growing bigger and we are planing on having a family expansion we needed something other than the Jeep. So, we went looking at minivans. After looking at the 5th minivan I was becoming more and more bored of the activity and pretty much all of them started to look the same to me – a vehicle with lots of space inside. Having gone through the majority makes and models of minivans on the market we decided to go to CarMax and see what they had to offer in addition to saving $20,000 from the price tag. What I noticed in majority of the minivans and crossover vehicles we had looked at is that ashtrays are no longer a build in feature. Ashtrays seem to have become an extra feature you have to request.

Personally I don’t care that there is a lack of ashtrays, but I do not think that it is fair to those who have chosen the slow suicide. Yes it is an option to order one, but what if you are reselling the car. Some people won’t buy the car for the lack of one. I suppose it is a marketing and economic decision. If the manufacturer does not have to make the space for it, they won’t. Same goes for spending money on the materials to make it.

I just find this trend strange. What do you think? What new trends have you picked up on that have surprised you?