Last fall marked the death of the Walkman, as Sony announced that it would be discontinuing its long-running portable cassette player. Well, we have some more bad news for tape lovers: there will be no more cars manufactured with factory-equipped cassette decks. Yes, we're surprised to learn that they are still making cars with tape decks as well.
The New York Times reports that industry experts have said that no new 2011 cars will contain a built-in cassette player. The last-ever car to feature a tape player was the 2010 Lexus SC 430. And by the looks of things, there won't even be any new cars where a built-in tape player can be custom-ordered.
This doesn't come as too much surprise, since CD players have been replacing cassette decks as the auto-industry standard for years. Of course, if you're still devoted to your tape collection, there's always the option of installing a player yourself.
Now that the dashboard cassette deck is officially a thing of the past, a new questions remains to be answered: how much longer will CD players be around before iPod docks and cloud-based music storage systems take over completely?
The New York Times reports that industry experts have said that no new 2011 cars will contain a built-in cassette player. The last-ever car to feature a tape player was the 2010 Lexus SC 430. And by the looks of things, there won't even be any new cars where a built-in tape player can be custom-ordered.
This doesn't come as too much surprise, since CD players have been replacing cassette decks as the auto-industry standard for years. Of course, if you're still devoted to your tape collection, there's always the option of installing a player yourself.
Now that the dashboard cassette deck is officially a thing of the past, a new questions remains to be answered: how much longer will CD players be around before iPod docks and cloud-based music storage systems take over completely?
