Don't forget even though there not as sleek or stylish as a usb port you can power higher amperage items that are far beyond the usb's capabilities. Emergency air compressors and some power tools come to mind, not to mention peltier based refrigerator /coolers.
I can't recommend more highly, to anyone who enjoyed this, Knowing Better's incredibly interesting history of cigarettes. It's called "Freedom Torches," uploaded July '21. Loved the video! Great idea for a series, even if I am old enough to already know most of this stuff.
I find it remarkable that somehow they managed to accidentally create a fairly standard connector. If someone said "let's create a car accessory connector" we'd end up with half a dozen incompatible connectors, and North America and Europe would each have their own sets.
My old (well... 2008) BMW motorcycle had a power outlet. It was 12 volts. It was round. No it was not a ciggie outlet, it was a propriety port (too small for standard ciggie outlets) which would actually talk to the bike's computer to confirm that it was something that was allowed to be powered by the bike (i.e. correctly licenced). It was also an utterly useless thing.
It's a pretty crappy connector imo. My parents smoked in the car and used butane lighters (Clipper) to light their cigarettes. The dashboard lighter was used as a last resort. As a child I thought a barrel jack would be more useful. When I was old/wealthy enough to own a car, I installed a couple of 2.1mm barrel sockets in those blanking plates you get in a vehicle that has the most basic trim level. I guess what the cigar lighter socket does have going for it is you can plug it in while you're driving, but in my experience most accessories disconnect when you go over a bump. Or in at least one car, the lighter socket is right next to the handbrake and gear stick, so it's right in the way, and all it takes is a little nudge to lose power. TL;DR: A barrel jack takes up less space, can handle just as much current, and is a worldwide standard, but if you try to plug it in while you're driving, you might crash. Also USB PD FTW!
@@igotes cheers to usb pd! I bought one such power bank on clearance and paired it with a USB C to Cigarette cable to use with my old Cigarette to 120V inverter. AC power bank on the cheap.
@@Logarithm906 that feels like the ice cream lock from LockPickingLawyer, he showed how to pick it, locked his wife's ice cream with it to see if she could pick it... She just opened the ice cream bucket from the bottom. If the purpose is preventing me from reaching 12V DC, I'll just grab two wires, pliers and go for the battery with a 10 cent p4 connector
im not a smoker and never have been but i still love the fact of having a cigarette lighter in the car, it feels like holding onto a little bit of history that sets it apart from modern cars
Same. My '89 Nissan has a cigar lighter, ash tray, and even a switch to change the engine between "regular" leaded and "super" unleaded fuel. It also doesn't have a middle brake light yet, only two. Most people wouldn't notice these details, but these things really set an old car apart from a modern one.
As a nonsmoker, i still find this feature quite nifty for other purpose. Have used ours as firestarter for camping. I'd stick a small twig onto it to light up our bonfire. And the 12volt outlet we'd use to power some electronics and air pumps
Yeah I just thought about this myself. I keep some emergency stuff in the car because I live in the north, and if you get stuck in a snow drift with no service on a back road, you could be in real trouble. You can't keep a normal lighter in the car, it would blow up in the summer heat. My solution has been keeping a little flint lighter with no fuel that just throws Sparks on a frayed rope wick to create flame, but just putting the damn 12V lighter back would be a much more elegant solution
My dad’s 2008 F150 still has a cigarette lighter, and it was functional until around 2016 or so. I used to use it all the time before I quit smoking; I guess I just enjoyed the novelty of it. It was also the perfect joint lighting implement, since it wouldn’t cause runs up the side of the joint like lighters do lmao
Dampen the last 5 mm or so of the paper slightly before you spark up. This should help delay the paper burning up the sides and let the stuffing get glowing good and red. If it's just you, licking your finger should provide all you need. If you're sharing, you might want to find water even though anything living in your saliva is going to die when it burns.
@@Ben-ed4wx I beg to differ, smoking a joint to wind down every now and then is a hell of a lot different than smoking 10-20 cigarettes a day as a habit
I think there will always be a way to access the car's 12v system directly. The old lighter plug has just become the 12v standard outlet. Which is good because the big adapters have room for a fuse to protect your gadgets. But if the big round outlet were to be redesigned, it might be in the form of 'USB12' or whatever the new naming convention is, which is also capable of transferring 12v.
USB4 is capable of "delivering" many different tensions such as 12 V. It ranges from 5 to 48 V and goes up to 240 W . The underlying technology is named "USB Power Delivery"
Fuses/breakers don't protect your gadgets, they protect the wires of the circuit in the car/house from exceeding their current rating and catching fire. It's your gadget that's already failed causing the short that causes the fuse/breaker to break.
I think the future is Vehicle to Load where EVs can utilise the full power of their battery packs while on the go, using conventional plug sockets inside and the ccs plug outside.
I remember when the "smoker's package" became a popular option in new cars during the 90s. For anywhere between 200 - 500 dollars, you could get your car equipped with ashtrays and lighters. Those who didn't opt for the package would get a storage compartment / cup holder, and a lighter receptacle cover, instead.
@@morganrussman dad's 91 Jetta came with em front and back. No cupholders though, and that's what almost ruined VW here in the mid 90s is having lack of cupholders.
Ford still does this😂 you can even get one in that new Maverick it’s like $500 and some change they include the lighter and a “reinforced 12v plug for heat” as well as an ashtray
I remember seeing a billboard for cigarettes that said, "your car's cigarette lighter was not meant to charge your cellphone." You had to be careful about buying a used car from a smoker. Not only was it bad for the interior trim, and almost impossible to remove the smell, but the cigarette lighter would get clogged with gunk and thus couldn't be used for anything else. Well, if we found ourselves stuck waiting in our cars, then we could always play with the cigarette lighter. It was difficult to ignite anything but cigarettes since it was a red hot heating element and not an open flame. I wonder how many car fires (aka car-b-ques) got started that way. Maybe it is safer that we just have our phones to play with now.
Cellphones were created so the government could keep track of you 24/7. All your morden electrical systems are actually monitoring your every word and movements.
Cigarette lighter sockets are easy to replace if they are filled with cigarette junk but the main problem is, as you stated, the smell and discoloration of the interior pieces.
Neither was USB. Sometimes I wonder how the inventers of USB feel about it being used as a power standard. It was never intended for that, or at least they didn't envision it being used that way. In a car, they usually have data pins so it's proper USB at least. Lighting a cigarette is about the only thing you can't do with a smartphone. Although apparently they made one that had one built-in. Pretty slick party trick I bet. Oh and the Note 7 had that capability too.
Another trick for the old car cigarette lighter for us folks in colder areas was to use it to get a start on chipping that frozen windshield. Push the lighter when you start the car. When it pops out, grab it and melt a spot on the ice to start chipping from. Worked every time.
@@Michael-sb8jf no man he means thermal shock is when glass is cold and you put heat enough heat it will shatter due to the stress being different from the different temps, look it up “thermal shock glass” and yes if you pressed the hot heating element on the bare glass it would probably shatter it but if it’s just on the ice it’ll be fine
The issue with USB "taking over" from 12V outlets is that besides charging devices, high power equipment will still need the highest voltage and amperage possible (not 2A from a 5V USB outlet) See inverters and compressor pumps for flat wheels. These are rather important in some vehicles that do remote field work like on farms where you may need an inverter to power 220v (or whatever your local power outlet voltage is) for computers, or fixing flat tires when you need to do that
A circular outlet is still useful. It can provide more power than any USB port, so it's great for camping gear and the like. It's much cheaper for the automaker to implement than a 120v AC port as well.
@@manitoba-op4jxThe inverter may be rated for that, but vast majority of sockets won't be. The fuse is typically 20-25 amps, 12v x 20a = 240w. You are also losing a huge chunk of that power by inverting it.
I got in the back of my aunt's car and was surprised to only find 120v outlets, fortunately there were a couple 12v barrel plugs in the cargo area I could use
Future videos ideas 1 Mast antennas/power antennas 2 Why pre 1980s cars had circular or square headlights 3 vent / smokers windows: vents that are not part of the HVAC system 4 smog pumps
Funny story about how sealed beam headlights became un-required. Ford wanted to introduce aerodynamic headlights for styling. They went to the government to ask permission but the government said no. Ford realized that smooth headlights improved the car's aerodynamics and therefore reduced emission and therefore increased safety. They went to the government with that logic and the government said "but of course! Of course you can have aerodynamic headlights!" Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the government still required sealed beams.
It's an interesting place with the 12 volt socket right now, because there's an entire ecosystem of portable RV and camping gear that uses high wattage DC and things like portable battery banks/solar generators that use that plug as their standard high wattage DC output, we're talking loads that are way too big for USB like refrigerators. It's also rather interesting that that plug isn't standardized as a 12 volt plug, commercial vehicles often have a 24 volt system so you can fry a piece of equipment by plugging it into their sockets without checking first.
It takes a lot of power to heat that element to red hot. Watts = Volts x Amps Find the fuse for the lighter to finish the calculation. This laptop has a 65w power supply, the lighter can handle that with 6 amps.
@Casper's Studio That's mostly correct, but some devices still insist on a handshake for anything over 500mA, and a lot of "dumb" USB power sockets lack the circuitry to conduct a handshake (even though the circuitry required is so cheap it might as well be free) My iPhone still bitches at me and stops charging altogether on cheap generic 12VAC to USB plugs if the supply offers more than 1A, even though the phone can take double or triple that. It just sees >1A and panics because there's no handshake. And it makes sense because in order to limit current on the phone side, there's only one thing to do and that's bleed off the excess as resistive heat. Ok technically they could do something clever with caps and diodes and a mosfet and moderating the duty cycle, but people really aren't trying to add components to phones for those use cases when they can just sell you their "official" charger.
@@nutbastard Any smartphone will have current limiting circuitry, since a LiPo battery charges at 4.2V, USB delivers 5, and the internals probably run on 3.3v. The issue is that if your phone cannot determine the rating of the power supply, it will not draw more than 500mA. This is because you cannot assume that any given power supply is actually capable of delivering more than 500mA, and drawing more could cause an overload.
When I was a kid I accidentally touched the end of the red hot cigarette lighter and burnt the crap out of my finger. But I also learned that it removed my fingerprints so my dumb 8-year-old self proceeded to remove ALL of my fingerprints.
The one thing I miss about the in-car lighters is their use in starting fires in emergencies. Twice in my childhood we were stranded on the road and used the cigarette lighter to start a fire either to keep warm or act as an emergency beacon. (You also forgot to mention dashcams as a common use for the "power outlet" in most modern cars.)
I remember they made electric cigarette lighters for motorcycles. It looked like a CB mic with the coiled cord. It had a button on the side and the little heating element. You could light up in the wind.
I'd pay a good amount of cash for something like that now. I've been looking for a lighter that really is windproof, to light cigarettes on my bike.....for ever.
While I don't drink or smoke anymore (Had to quit for both my health and sanity) I was never against having these in cars and while it is handy in the event you forget your lighter or the one you have has no fluid left in it, it seemed rather pointless since almost every smoker I knew (My dad included) always had lighters on them or kept numerous back ups in their cars, homes and work places. Regardless this was an amazing video and glad I clicked on it seeing it in my recommended feed.
@@wildlifewarrior2670 I can't touch alcohol anymore be the last time I got drunk I was really depressed after leaving a really toxic relationship. Next thing I knew I was running down the street threatening to kill myself with a knife in one hand and a wine bottle in the other. After I was tackled by a bystander and surrounded by cops, I woke up in the hospital hours later and admitted into a mental health clinic. When I was finally allowed to go home after a week and a half the first thing I had to do was look myself in the mirror and come to terms with everything that's happened and move on.
It's fun to push in the cigarette lighter and watch the voltage gauge jump down. The 12v socket is too much of a standard to go away, you can't plug inflators or fridges or other stuff into USB. I've noticed that modern cars hide them away and put the USB front and center which is fine because that's what most people use 12v sockets for. Euro cars have a slightly larger diameter socket that's not intended for heat. Old Rolls-Royces call them cigar lighters. They knew their customers. I always liked how Chrysler indicated on the plug covers if an outlet was battery or ignition switched.
The "Euro" diameter is for lighters too. Gets confusing buying lighter connectors in car accessory shops. Sometimes they were named "cigar lighters" with no difference.
'Euro' cars (all that I've owned from 60s models to 2010 models) have used the same 12v accessory socket size and the earlier ones WERE intended for hot use. I know this due to actually owning them.
I learned the hard way not to mess with these kinds of lighters. Was fortunately in a parking-lot when it happened- But I pushed one of these- to see how it worked. It popped out and flew under the seat. Would've made me IMMEDIATELY stop if I was driving.
4:39 not entirely, part of the reason they look different is because you can stick your finger in them and not get hurt. Household outlets ensure the contacts are hidden. Also plugs are different shapes in general to prevent plugging in devices that have different voltage, or current requirements. You can’t plug your dryer into a regular outlet. So all of these together are the reason
You can't plug a clothes dryer into a "regular" outlet because it uses 240V and a whole lot more amperage than a "regular" outlet can handle. It also requires a 4 pronged outlet, which combines two 120V lines to make 240V. All cars use a 12V negative ground DC system, so everything designed to be used in a car is designed for that system. I must have over 20 different things that are designed to be plugged into a "cigarette lighter" style car outlet. I have a 5 outlet pigtail that has one plug to plug into the outlet, then 5 separate outlets on it so I can connect up to 5 different things to a single outlet. If you overload it all it will do is blow a fuse.
@@MRdrPROkeithSR I remember someone once said that the Internet is just people aggressively agreeing with each other and I feel like I see an example of that every day lol
Believe it or not, the cig lighter socket in my truck will *NOT* charge anything, only the seperate 12v socket will. It will however make hot, so it does work... Also, lots of manufacturers have put in classic home style outlets in their upper tier vehicles in the past few years, so I am sure you are correct, the USB and those will phase out the old hot tubes. I was like you and fascinated by them in my parents cars, neither smoked but I did use it to burn a few things... including myself on one occasion, that was a learning day :P Also! I believe my 1996 Towncar had six seperate ashtrays, which was always funny to show friends, but not use, since Ive never smoked :P
Yep. My 2011 Crown Victoria only has one (car built on the same platform) but I was doing some stuff removing the rear door panels and found ashtray spots inside the rear doors
1994 Oldsmobile cutlass Supreme I had an ash tray in every door... and one shitty cupholder in the center armrest. I went to pick and pull and grabbed a 5th one to replace my coin holder with an ashtray. I didn't smoke nor did I let anyone smoke in my car.
@@charlie_nolan Some P71s have hybrid pull out trays that have more of a generic tray that's not intended as an ashtray bit keep the outlet bit as a cheap way to uavr an additional outlet.
I noticed some B roll footage of an E120 Corolla shift bezel. My grandma optioned the smokers package, which came with the lighter and a cup shaped removable ashtray. She didn't smoke so it was odd why she optioned it but it was cool playing with the lighter and the ashtray.
Interesting video! I remember as a kid I used to play with the lighter and thought it was so cool. Cars should still include them as having something that can create a spark is always handy, never know when you’ll need it and not everybody carries a lighter. As far as smoking goes, businesses should be able to dictate whether or not they want to allow it inside their business. I choose not to smoke but smokers should be able to go to a bar/restaurant that allows it. It isn’t the states place to tell a business that they cannot allow smoking inside their property.
Great video as always, I’m a smoker and drive older cars but funnily enough have never actually used the built in cigarette lighter, always my trusty clipper. I did attempt to once and then it caught fire 😂 luckily not a bad fire just melting some of my trim
Great video essay as always, Zack! It's very entertaining and fascinating to watch. Also, One long gone car feature that I would love to see covered in a Shooting Cars video essay is the three on the tree shifter layout.^^
I learned to drive in a 1963 Rambler with such a shifter. Now it would have to be, why do cars no longer have shifters at all? Three of my four vehicles have manual transmissions, and I love them.
Linkage assembly's being so complex Vs a cable or 2. Also the abundance of tilt and telescoping steering columns that are now current. However I would also like to see this video.
@@geraldscott4302 My brand new 2022 Ford Bronco is a stick shift. Why I need 6 gears, two of which are overdrive is a mystery. 1st is so short I have been starting it in 2nd.
I would say you skipped a section where accessories where made to plug into the lighter for power so instead of doing some hard change there was the soft transition to the 12v outlet
Ya, smoking used to be a big thing in America. They even had cars and light trucks with 2 piece side windows for the passenger and driver. You could crack open the smaller window to vent the smoke out of the car. Not to long ago I saw a car manufacturer offer a smoker package option on a new car. It consisted of a round ash tray that fits in the cup holder. I can't remember if it included a way to light your cigarette and don't remember what car I was looking at when I saw the option.
In the 1930's, even German airships like the Hindenburg, despite being hydrogen-filled and thus an extreme fire hazard, had a designated smoking room. It was kept pressurized just to be safe. But smoking was so popular on both sides of the Atlantic that it was feared that *not* providing facilities for it would turn away passengers. Or worse, inspire someone to smuggle a lighter into a less-supervised area of the ship.
The window vents (aka "wing windows") were not designed for smokers. They were made to simply force air into the cab, or suck it out, while making the forward part of the door glass functional with simpler window crank designs. But the fact that it was able to so gracefully suck air out, and in such a convenient location, made them perfect accessories for people who smoked.
I’m also fascinated by which auto makers still have cigarette lighters and which have ditched them, and when. My current car is a 2010 Hyundai Elantra, in the base trim package. Despite being sold 2-3 years after the release of the first iPhone, it still has a cigarette lighter and ash tray. You can see the start of the transition, though, because it also has a second 12V outlet with _no_ lighter in it, and the stereo has both a 3.5mm aux jack and a USB port. I’m trying pretty hard to remember if my parents’ cars have cigarette lighters or ashtrays in them. My mom drives a BMW 5-series from around 2013, and I’m fairly sure it has an ashtray but no lighter.
I have a 2010 Mercedes S class it has 2 lighters and they made those cars up to 2013 idk if the newer generation had them fitted or if they got removed all together
My 2009 Hyundai Genesis still came with a cigarette lighter and an ashtray. I've only used the ashtray for coin storage - and only used the cigarette lighter to light a cigarette once or twice (I was only a "social smoker" at most - I don't smoke at all now). There is a second 12V round socket (no lighter) inside the center console. My very first car was a 1999 Ford Contour, that one had the smoker's package - again I used the portable ashtray for coin storage (and it occupied one of the two cupholders).
In Europe lighters and ashtrays remained a standard fitting to almost every car into the early 2000s, I imagine the French and Eastern Europeans played a big part in lighters staying around so long.
In Europe (or at least Czechoslovakia) around 70's and 80's there was a special 12 volt outlet for cars, diferent than the lighter one. It was used mainly for worklights when inspecting the engine. Or police radios etc.
Ahh the cigarette lighter, that useless thing that got lost so you could plug in your CD player 12v and run the adapter thing to the tape deck. Was also handy for the Sega Game Gear on road trips because that thing ate AA batteries faster than one of those OG 50lb boom boxes did D-Cells, so using the 12v adaptor you could run it the whole drive.
Hey man great video thank you for the effort, however I think you are missing a point. These Outlets have remained the same and not imitated our home standards because our homes are in 24 volts where cars are only in 12 volts. This is due to the fact that starters of cars are powered in 12 volts by the continus electric current led acid batteries. Hope this is clear Enjoy your day
burned my finger once with one of these from my father's old work car, didnt stop me from pressing and popping it though. i would love a video on "junk cooler", the air vent under the steering wheel to cool your crotch area.
My 1980 Datsun has a lighter outlet that works perfectly to charge up my cell phone. Probably it was used for the first time ever in 2021 since the car was never smoked in. 👍
My parents had a 1972 Oldmobile 98 when I was little. I don't remember much about the front seats, but each door in the back seat had its own cigarette lighter and ash tray. Of course there were nights I would push the lighter in and wait for it to pop out, then enjoy the warm glow it produced. It also head the floor-mounted headlight switch. Not to mention, a 455 4-bbl on one end and a trunk you could fit a family of ten in at the other end, without removing the spare tire.
As a kid I caused quite extensive wiring damage when left alone briefly in it as I also enjoyed the lovely orange glow and by my teeny-tiny brain's deduction would be so much brighter and last so much longer. I mean, left with enough time I would have been proved right 😂
i had a similar childhood experience with the ashtrays in the back of my dad's 1999 Chevy blazer as a kid, just playing around with 'em not really knowing what they were, though we didn't have separate lighters back there by then
I disagree with the 12v socket going away. There are plenty of powered devices that will not work with a +5v USB socket. The pump for your inflatables for one.
These outlets can supply around 175w -300w (depending how vehicle is wired)comfortably because of the big outlet. USB for now only supplies about 25w. They are working on USB that supplies 100-300w but are far more prone to having overheating and shorting issues. Trying to get more power through a small connection point has to be very secure and a higher voltage, but that creates it's own array of problems.
The round car outlet is 12V DC, and household outlet in America is 120V AC. I imagine 12V ports will stay around because the automotive aftermarket gave it new purpose: portable air compressors, inverters, radar detectors, etc.
And for USB charging, it's much easier to upgrade a 12v adapter for new wattages and standards, compared to a built-in USB port. Even the USB ports in the video (5-7 W) are already pretty weak by today's standards.
Great video! To anyone who's interested, the concept that is referred to in the conclusion of the video (the comparison between a floppy disc icon as a save symbol and an actual floppy disc being obsolete) is called skueomorph. There's a very interesting Vsauce video going into the subject iirc
Excellent video as always. Loved the intro. I have a suggestion for a future video to be about use of sealed beam head lamps. I did research on them a while ago and found that it was something the government was very strict about in the USA whereas in European countries less so. IIRC halogen headlamps with replaceable bulbs were not in widespread use over here until the 90's.
@@KenBober you could reduce the damage greatly by stopping. also how much money do you use on cigarettes every year? exactly, stop now. the longer you’ll keep on smoking the more money you’ll waste and the more you are damaging your lungs.
it's a little bit sad, because you can use the lighter in many other ways, and it doen't bother anyone. and ashtrays are a very good thing, as you can use it as a garbage can, as many people trow the cigrarrettes out of the window, and that's obviously not cool. at least some of them would use the ashtray
My grandpa once took me for a ride in his 1999 Porsche Boxter which had a cigarette lighter. Being raised Mormon, I barely even new what a cigarette was, let alone a car having a cigarette lighter (I was about 10 at the time 2011 or so). I pulled the lighter out and saw that one end had a spiraled red light on it. Thinking it was maybe a button of some kind, I put my right index finger on the light, which you probably guessed already was the red hot end of the cigarette lighter. I got 2nd degree burns, but the humiliation 11 years later is what burns the most. Note: I watched my finger as it healed over time, and there was no sign that my fingerprint disappeared. It just healed like normal. There’s also no scaring or deformation of my fingertip which I’m shocked by
Fingerprints are weird like that. You really have to damage deep to alter them. I've lost fingerprints to chemical burns, and later in life, a bad flare up of psoriasis. We're talking just dead smooth fingertips. They always grew back, unaltered.
Exact same thing happen to me as a kid as well. Even when I knew what it was I never saw anyone use it, not even my mother who was a smoker. Tip of my middle finger burned into brown crisp like a toast. Eventually the skin came off and it was bleeding some white liquid for a while until it healed completely, can't even tell which hand or finger it was. We just put a bandage and I went to play sports as I had a game that day. I just remember giving everbody the middle finger because I couldn't hold my stick otherwise.
I was really excited to find a fully-working lighter on my first car. I don't smoke, and I don't intend to let anyone smoke in my car, but it was such a cool little piece of technology I wasn't expecting.
We never smoked however the older cars we used to have cigarette lighter that we had no use for. I decided to hold the lighter in trying to burn the element out instead I almost got my fingers burned off. One of my friends did the same thing and started the dash on FIRE.
The only thing I've used the round power in my car is the power the device that adds air to the car tire. I also have a phone charger that plugs into it.
It would be interesting to see a video essay on the weird variety in satnav/infotainment systems from the 90s and 2000s. There's some extremely bizarre designs and styles out there using cell towers and gyros to guess where you are
@@skylined5534 There's a BBC newsreel on youtube about that called "Sat nav - without a satellite - in 1971? | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive" It's pretty clever but has a few drawbacks which are shown in the video.
I'm actually glad cars have these instead of regular outlets, because if you import a car from an other country or buy a foreign car, you have no problem using the accessories. Now imagine using US outlet with UK or EU plug with some added bulky adapters
The one in my truck is chrome and fancy. 1986 F150. It's an XLT Lariat, and it's the only 12v outlet in the truck, and it's the factory radio head unit in the truck so I just gotta leave the ashtray open to have my Bluetooth FM thing plugged in. Also it has floor mounted high beam selectors. I love the high beam switch
Hey I just got my first RX-7 and I had to thank you for your advice and videos. I love your video essay style content and hope to see you continue making it in the future.
oh wow those floor mounted high beams! my older co worker was talking about how those used to be a thing when he was driving. so cool to see that it will be talked about in one of your videos
I remember when I first met my wife, I was visiting from out of town and her mom let me borrow her 20 year old Cadillac that was barely holding together, and I tried turning off the high beams only to find out that the high beams were the ONLY headlights that worked! Apologies to anyone I might have blinded back then... Although the fancy blue headlights on new cars today are even worse, I'm sure. I also miss the gas filler cap being behind the rear license plate, you never had to worry which side of the car was facing the pump.
Like most option packages, I think the $200 - $500 range includes a bit more than a lighter and ashtray. Recalling 60s vintage VW had a lighter for $8 and the optional AM radio was another $85. Everything was single and there was no package deal to be had.
Mentioning the floppy disks, I noticed theres a weird thing thats fashionable with younger kids and adults like 12 to 20 I'ma say, that think its cool to not be able to recognized old tech. I'm 24 and thanks to to my grandpa I've been able to recognize tools, farm equipment, and even old lab equipment like oscilloscopes, wave generators and old mass spec machines. My grandpa was a chemist/professor and my grandma a geologist so being well spoken and having a decent understanding of the sciences was a corner stone of my upbringing around them and I thought it was great but I noticed my nieces and nephews and my girlfriends little brother are "unable" to recognize simple things but especially floppy disks and I know they know what it is and they refer to anything made before the 2000s as "from the 1900s" it's just weird to act like we werent using this stuff 20 years ago some of us even 10 or 15. Old technology is the building blocks to the world we have today and the least anyone can do is learn to recognize. Not even learn how it works just maybe what it does and what its a precursor to.
I totally agree. Floppy discs were there untill 2003 or 2004s and saying that new generation don't know is actually weird. Can't they learn a 20 year old technology? I know Ford Model T which is a 120 year old car and I born in 80s.
Im 39, and still don't know why they called those (i think 5 inch?) floppy disks when they were in a hard case. O remember computer games would come with like 8 of them you had to upload, took all day, just to find out your Macintosh Preforma couldn't handle it. The older larger ones however, were actually floppy. If you know what a Commodore 64 is, then you know what im talking about. Maybe that name just carried over from those. It was crazy growing up in a time where you had to call a phone number to get the exact time to set your clocks, and was also right on the cusp of all the technology we have now.
You should do one about the phase-out of traditional single-DIN modular car stereos in favor of the 7" and 8" (even 12"!) infotainment touchscreens that have taken over with Apple Car Play and Android Auto.
Oh yes I hate those! Especially in the late 90's when Ford made everything on the Taurus and Escort oval-shaped, and included the HVAC controls on the same panel as the radio. Crutchfield did sell an adapter for those, but it was way expensive and a big hassle. At least new cars usually come with Bluetooth now, so replacing the head unit isn't as big an issue. But up until 2019 I was still playing my music through one of those cassette-shaped adapters, my 2001 Honda Accord came with both a tape player and CD changer.
It's honestly odd to know younger generations don't even know what a floppy disk. So glad I grew up with a lot of old technology so I tend to recognize much of it. But dang the floppy disks are still huge. Yet pretty cool.
it does feel odd. from my perspective, everyone learns about floppy disks at some point. to me, people who dont know what a floppy disk is are probably children who are way too young to know anything substantial yet, but then again i also grew up with old tech so that could be a factor.
I had an old car that instead of having cigarette lighter for the power outlet, it had a mono jack outlet that's made for a plug like the one for an electric guitar.
I dont think the usb can entirely replace the circular outlet because they can do more than just charge your phone, unless replaced with normal outlets there are plenty of things that can be used with the circular outlet like dash cams, vacuums they can be used to power external cords and etc. If anything, they will be replaced with normal outlets (obviously depending on where you live in the world you have different "normal" outlets)
First video I've seen from this channel. I like it already. I was born mid 1970s, so I grew up in cars with the lighters, and have seen how their implementation has altered throughout the years. In the present time I have a strange juxtaposition of times and cars: my mom has a 1992 Chrysler LeBaron that she bought used in 2014. (Fyi, when she bought it, the car had and still has a total milage count of less than 100,000miles. Approx. 76,000 currently.) Of course, the car, being state of the art in 1992 has two lighter ports up front in the central console with ashtray, as well as an ashtray with lighter in the rear of the central console for the back seat. Recently, my mom bought a newer 20-teens half-track type of car that is equipped with USB ports front to rear. Regardless of having these modern ports, the car is also equipped with a lighter-type port, although no astray.
This was a good one. When I was a young lad (yes; I'm old now) I remember when you had an ashtray and a cigarette lighter in the door armrest at every outboard seating position in a vehicle. That was high-class back then.
I find that useful having a cigarette lighter plug that can power other accessories too. But it'll be better if cars were equipped with 220v sine wave inverter from factory. I don't think I'm gonna miss cigarette lighter at all in the future. I'm now on my progress embedding a 220v socket in my 1988 Cressida so I can plug normal home items in my car. Also, I think another feature that needs to be added as a standard feature is wireless phone charger.
This reminds me of something I heard on the radio this morning. On 106.1fm. They talked about a viral video of a parent placing a rotary phone on the table and having their teenage kids figure out how to use it. I'm thinking to myself man I'm old , both my parents and my grandparents had rotary phones back in the 80s to Early 90s.
Also had that kid experience of burning my fingers on fiddling around with the car buttons. Last thing I expected to find was some crazy electronic heating coil to burn things with when every smoker I knew kept a lighter in their pocket. Finding out we could plug in phone chargers and other gadgets into the same plug blew my mind decades later.
80s Cars Were Better Sticker - www.zackpradel.com/product-page/cars-were-better-in-the-80-s-sticker
Dont know if it has been done or not, but id love to see power antennas, and why they exist, why we don't see them anymore etc.
Don't forget even though there not as sleek or stylish as a usb port you can power higher amperage items that are far beyond the usb's capabilities. Emergency air compressors and some power tools come to mind, not to mention peltier based refrigerator /coolers.
Oh god it happens! Millennials making video explaining to millennials what a car lighter is...
I gotta get me one of these stickers for the old 85 ford that's pissing oil in my garage rn
I can't recommend more highly, to anyone who enjoyed this, Knowing Better's incredibly interesting history of cigarettes. It's called "Freedom Torches," uploaded July '21.
Loved the video! Great idea for a series, even if I am old enough to already know most of this stuff.
I find it remarkable that somehow they managed to accidentally create a fairly standard connector. If someone said "let's create a car accessory connector" we'd end up with half a dozen incompatible connectors, and North America and Europe would each have their own sets.
My old (well... 2008) BMW motorcycle had a power outlet. It was 12 volts. It was round. No it was not a ciggie outlet, it was a propriety port (too small for standard ciggie outlets) which would actually talk to the bike's computer to confirm that it was something that was allowed to be powered by the bike (i.e. correctly licenced).
It was also an utterly useless thing.
It's a pretty crappy connector imo. My parents smoked in the car and used butane lighters (Clipper) to light their cigarettes. The dashboard lighter was used as a last resort.
As a child I thought a barrel jack would be more useful. When I was old/wealthy enough to own a car, I installed a couple of 2.1mm barrel sockets in those blanking plates you get in a vehicle that has the most basic trim level.
I guess what the cigar lighter socket does have going for it is you can plug it in while you're driving, but in my experience most accessories disconnect when you go over a bump. Or in at least one car, the lighter socket is right next to the handbrake and gear stick, so it's right in the way, and all it takes is a little nudge to lose power.
TL;DR: A barrel jack takes up less space, can handle just as much current, and is a worldwide standard, but if you try to plug it in while you're driving, you might crash. Also USB PD FTW!
@@igotes cheers to usb pd! I bought one such power bank on clearance and paired it with a USB C to Cigarette cable to use with my old Cigarette to 120V inverter. AC power bank on the cheap.
I think you meant to say *_"North America and the rest of the World."_*
@@Logarithm906 that feels like the ice cream lock from LockPickingLawyer, he showed how to pick it, locked his wife's ice cream with it to see if she could pick it... She just opened the ice cream bucket from the bottom.
If the purpose is preventing me from reaching 12V DC, I'll just grab two wires, pliers and go for the battery with a 10 cent p4 connector
im not a smoker and never have been but i still love the fact of having a cigarette lighter in the car, it feels like holding onto a little bit of history that sets it apart from modern cars
Same. My '89 Nissan has a cigar lighter, ash tray, and even a switch to change the engine between "regular" leaded and "super" unleaded fuel. It also doesn't have a middle brake light yet, only two. Most people wouldn't notice these details, but these things really set an old car apart from a modern one.
AND, you could start a fire in an emergency.
same
i remember my mom used to always threaten to burn my dads eye with that, i think he broke her eye socket the time she really did it.
@@SidewaysBurnouts Jesus what kind of Kevin Spencer like household did you grow up in?
As a nonsmoker, i still find this feature quite nifty for other purpose. Have used ours as firestarter for camping. I'd stick a small twig onto it to light up our bonfire. And the 12volt outlet we'd use to power some electronics and air pumps
That is what I thought they was for naturally. Like if I'm stranded I would love to make a fire or torch so I wouldn't kill my battery
Yeah I just thought about this myself. I keep some emergency stuff in the car because I live in the north, and if you get stuck in a snow drift with no service on a back road, you could be in real trouble. You can't keep a normal lighter in the car, it would blow up in the summer heat. My solution has been keeping a little flint lighter with no fuel that just throws Sparks on a frayed rope wick to create flame, but just putting the damn 12V lighter back would be a much more elegant solution
Improvise, adapt, overcome.
My grandfather used to use it to heat up cans of soup
We later saw this in "A Goofy Movie" and howled with laughter
Same, we use to use the lighter to start fires when camping or hiking hahha
My dad’s 2008 F150 still has a cigarette lighter, and it was functional until around 2016 or so. I used to use it all the time before I quit smoking; I guess I just enjoyed the novelty of it. It was also the perfect joint lighting implement, since it wouldn’t cause runs up the side of the joint like lighters do lmao
The joint lighting part is 100% true lol
Dampen the last 5 mm or so of the paper slightly before you spark up. This should help delay the paper burning up the sides and let the stuffing get glowing good and red. If it's just you, licking your finger should provide all you need. If you're sharing, you might want to find water even though anything living in your saliva is going to die when it burns.
You didn't quit smoking if you smoke weed.
@@Ben-ed4wx I beg to differ, smoking a joint to wind down every now and then is a hell of a lot different than smoking 10-20 cigarettes a day as a habit
I have a 2008 Mazda, the lighter still works but it goes out fast, you need to be quick to light a cigarette
I think there will always be a way to access the car's 12v system directly. The old lighter plug has just become the 12v standard outlet. Which is good because the big adapters have room for a fuse to protect your gadgets. But if the big round outlet were to be redesigned, it might be in the form of 'USB12' or whatever the new naming convention is, which is also capable of transferring 12v.
USB4 is capable of "delivering" many different tensions such as 12 V.
It ranges from 5 to 48 V and goes up to 240 W .
The underlying technology is named "USB Power Delivery"
Fuses/breakers don't protect your gadgets, they protect the wires of the circuit in the car/house from exceeding their current rating and catching fire. It's your gadget that's already failed causing the short that causes the fuse/breaker to break.
I think the future is Vehicle to Load where EVs can utilise the full power of their battery packs while on the go, using conventional plug sockets inside and the ccs plug outside.
@@theblah12 there are already EVs with wall sockets outside like the F-150 lightning, Hummer EV, and the R1T (?)
I remember when the "smoker's package" became a popular option in new cars during the 90s. For anywhere between 200 - 500 dollars, you could get your car equipped with ashtrays and lighters. Those who didn't opt for the package would get a storage compartment / cup holder, and a lighter receptacle cover, instead.
$200 to $500 for an ash tray and lighter in the 1990s? What a rip off.
@@morganrussman but today it would be a good deal
@@morganrussman for 200-500 ANY option on new car is the cheapest kind of option. Cargo nets cost the same even though you can buy one for 5€ anywhere
@@morganrussman dad's 91 Jetta came with em front and back.
No cupholders though, and that's what almost ruined VW here in the mid 90s is having lack of cupholders.
Ford still does this😂 you can even get one in that new Maverick it’s like $500 and some change they include the lighter and a “reinforced 12v plug for heat” as well as an ashtray
I remember seeing a billboard for cigarettes that said, "your car's cigarette lighter was not meant to charge your cellphone." You had to be careful about buying a used car from a smoker. Not only was it bad for the interior trim, and almost impossible to remove the smell, but the cigarette lighter would get clogged with gunk and thus couldn't be used for anything else. Well, if we found ourselves stuck waiting in our cars, then we could always play with the cigarette lighter. It was difficult to ignite anything but cigarettes since it was a red hot heating element and not an open flame. I wonder how many car fires (aka car-b-ques) got started that way. Maybe it is safer that we just have our phones to play with now.
No cellphones can catch on fire too. My friends I Phone burnt his table.
Cellphones were created so the government could keep track of you 24/7. All your morden electrical systems are actually monitoring your every word and movements.
Cigarette lighter sockets are easy to replace if they are filled with cigarette junk but the main problem is, as you stated, the smell and discoloration of the interior pieces.
i thought cigarette advertisments where illegal by the time cellphones existed
Neither was USB. Sometimes I wonder how the inventers of USB feel about it being used as a power standard. It was never intended for that, or at least they didn't envision it being used that way. In a car, they usually have data pins so it's proper USB at least.
Lighting a cigarette is about the only thing you can't do with a smartphone. Although apparently they made one that had one built-in. Pretty slick party trick I bet. Oh and the Note 7 had that capability too.
Another trick for the old car cigarette lighter for us folks in colder areas was to use it to get a start on chipping that frozen windshield. Push the lighter when you start the car. When it pops out, grab it and melt a spot on the ice to start chipping from. Worked every time.
Wouldn't that destroy the glass?
@@porterbennett7041 glass has a melting point well above 1000 degrees. I doubt a little electric heating element reaches even a fraction of that
@@Michael-sb8jf no man he means thermal shock is when glass is cold and you put heat enough heat it will shatter due to the stress being different from the different temps, look it up “thermal shock glass” and yes if you pressed the hot heating element on the bare glass it would probably shatter it but if it’s just on the ice it’ll be fine
Yeah. If it's iced bad enough that your scraper needs help, start the engine, turn the heater to full defrost and wait ten minutes.
@@Michael-sb8jf I never mentioned it would melt I ment wouldn't it crack the glass if it's that cold
The issue with USB "taking over" from 12V outlets is that besides charging devices, high power equipment will still need the highest voltage and amperage possible (not 2A from a 5V USB outlet)
See inverters and compressor pumps for flat wheels.
These are rather important in some vehicles that do remote field work like on farms where you may need an inverter to power 220v (or whatever your local power outlet voltage is) for computers, or fixing flat tires when you need to do that
A circular outlet is still useful. It can provide more power than any USB port, so it's great for camping gear and the like. It's much cheaper for the automaker to implement than a 120v AC port as well.
Type-C power delivery can provide 240w of power at up to 48v
@@manitoba-op4jxThe inverter may be rated for that, but vast majority of sockets won't be. The fuse is typically 20-25 amps, 12v x 20a = 240w. You are also losing a huge chunk of that power by inverting it.
No wants permanent in this world except for change
I like the fact that some cars have all three: 12v outlet, regular home outlet, and USBs
My 2014 Silverado 1500 LT is like that!
Iv never seen that... must be a rich thing
I got in the back of my aunt's car and was surprised to only find 120v outlets, fortunately there were a couple 12v barrel plugs in the cargo area I could use
Im always jealous when I see a car with a home outlet. Imagine all the stuff I could plug in
@@user-ejxomyq You can buy an inverter that turns a 12VDC socket into a 120 or 240VAC socket. They're a pretty chunky box thing and get quite warm.
Future videos ideas
1 Mast antennas/power antennas
2 Why pre 1980s cars had circular or square headlights
3 vent / smokers windows: vents that are not part of the HVAC system
4 smog pumps
Don’t forget the antennae that were imbedded in the windshield and rear window and the shark fins we have today.
Funny story about how sealed beam headlights became un-required. Ford wanted to introduce aerodynamic headlights for styling. They went to the government to ask permission but the government said no. Ford realized that smooth headlights improved the car's aerodynamics and therefore reduced emission and therefore increased safety. They went to the government with that logic and the government said "but of course! Of course you can have aerodynamic headlights!" Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the government still required sealed beams.
Also: 1. the decline of manual transmission
2. Slow decline of key ignition being replaced by start stop button.
It's an interesting place with the 12 volt socket right now, because there's an entire ecosystem of portable RV and camping gear that uses high wattage DC and things like portable battery banks/solar generators that use that plug as their standard high wattage DC output, we're talking loads that are way too big for USB like refrigerators. It's also rather interesting that that plug isn't standardized as a 12 volt plug, commercial vehicles often have a 24 volt system so you can fry a piece of equipment by plugging it into their sockets without checking first.
It takes a lot of power to heat that element to red hot.
Watts = Volts x Amps
Find the fuse for the lighter to finish the calculation.
This laptop has a 65w power supply, the lighter can handle that with 6 amps.
@Casper's Studio That's mostly correct, but some devices still insist on a handshake for anything over 500mA, and a lot of "dumb" USB power sockets lack the circuitry to conduct a handshake (even though the circuitry required is so cheap it might as well be free)
My iPhone still bitches at me and stops charging altogether on cheap generic 12VAC to USB plugs if the supply offers more than 1A, even though the phone can take double or triple that. It just sees >1A and panics because there's no handshake.
And it makes sense because in order to limit current on the phone side, there's only one thing to do and that's bleed off the excess as resistive heat. Ok technically they could do something clever with caps and diodes and a mosfet and moderating the duty cycle, but people really aren't trying to add components to phones for those use cases when they can just sell you their "official" charger.
@@nutbastard Any smartphone will have current limiting circuitry, since a LiPo battery charges at 4.2V, USB delivers 5, and the internals probably run on 3.3v. The issue is that if your phone cannot determine the rating of the power supply, it will not draw more than 500mA. This is because you cannot assume that any given power supply is actually capable of delivering more than 500mA, and drawing more could cause an overload.
Learned that the hard way. I took my 12V travel refrigerator along with me for a work shift in a 24V truck... guess what happened..
USB PD can get up to 240W
When I was a kid I accidentally touched the end of the red hot cigarette lighter and burnt the crap out of my finger. But I also learned that it removed my fingerprints so my dumb 8-year-old self proceeded to remove ALL of my fingerprints.
The one thing I miss about the in-car lighters is their use in starting fires in emergencies. Twice in my childhood we were stranded on the road and used the cigarette lighter to start a fire either to keep warm or act as an emergency beacon. (You also forgot to mention dashcams as a common use for the "power outlet" in most modern cars.)
We used to use them to light fireworks and throw them out the window.
Radar detector
The only thing I use mine got is to charge my Steam Deck
I remember they made electric cigarette lighters for motorcycles. It looked like a CB mic with the coiled cord. It had a button on the side and the little heating element. You could light up in the wind.
Yeah, now imagine an ashtray on a motorcycle
@@satsumagt5284 I think the wind blowing would make up for not having a ashtray!
@@satsumagt5284 Indonesians: dispose the ash straight to the street and hitting other driver's eye
I'd pay a good amount of cash for something like that now. I've been looking for a lighter that really is windproof, to light cigarettes on my bike.....for ever.
@@whatyoumakeofit6635 Brazilian?
While I don't drink or smoke anymore (Had to quit for both my health and sanity) I was never against having these in cars and while it is handy in the event you forget your lighter or the one you have has no fluid left in it, it seemed rather pointless since almost every smoker I knew (My dad included) always had lighters on them or kept numerous back ups in their cars, homes and work places. Regardless this was an amazing video and glad I clicked on it seeing it in my recommended feed.
You should have a drink and celebrate
@@wildlifewarrior2670 I can't touch alcohol anymore be the last time I got drunk I was really depressed after leaving a really toxic relationship.
Next thing I knew I was running down the street threatening to kill myself with a knife in one hand and a wine bottle in the other.
After I was tackled by a bystander and surrounded by cops, I woke up in the hospital hours later and admitted into a mental health clinic.
When I was finally allowed to go home after a week and a half the first thing I had to do was look myself in the mirror and come to terms with everything that's happened and move on.
@@TheSeventhDeadlyMatador good thing you stopped
@@wildlifewarrior2670 After all that I bought my first car and started my channel which centers around my hobbies and Interest.
I think maybe the car lighter is safer? Designed for one hand operation, you don't have to dig it out of your pocket, etc.
It's fun to push in the cigarette lighter and watch the voltage gauge jump down. The 12v socket is too much of a standard to go away, you can't plug inflators or fridges or other stuff into USB. I've noticed that modern cars hide them away and put the USB front and center which is fine because that's what most people use 12v sockets for. Euro cars have a slightly larger diameter socket that's not intended for heat.
Old Rolls-Royces call them cigar lighters. They knew their customers. I always liked how Chrysler indicated on the plug covers if an outlet was battery or ignition switched.
In a Chrysler, you can change the outlet to always on or switched just by shifting the fuse to the left or the right.
The "Euro" diameter is for lighters too. Gets confusing buying lighter connectors in car accessory shops. Sometimes they were named "cigar lighters" with no difference.
'Euro' cars (all that I've owned from 60s models to 2010 models) have used the same 12v accessory socket size and the earlier ones WERE intended for hot use. I know this due to actually owning them.
I learned the hard way not to mess with these kinds of lighters. Was fortunately in a parking-lot when it happened- But I pushed one of these- to see how it worked. It popped out and flew under the seat. Would've made me IMMEDIATELY stop if I was driving.
Now that weed is legal, they should bring those sexies back
4:39 not entirely, part of the reason they look different is because you can stick your finger in them and not get hurt. Household outlets ensure the contacts are hidden. Also plugs are different shapes in general to prevent plugging in devices that have different voltage, or current requirements. You can’t plug your dryer into a regular outlet. So all of these together are the reason
You can't plug a clothes dryer into a "regular" outlet because it uses 240V and a whole lot more amperage than a "regular" outlet can handle. It also requires a 4 pronged outlet, which combines two 120V lines to make 240V. All cars use a 12V negative ground DC system, so everything designed to be used in a car is designed for that system. I must have over 20 different things that are designed to be plugged into a "cigarette lighter" style car outlet. I have a 5 outlet pigtail that has one plug to plug into the outlet, then 5 separate outlets on it so I can connect up to 5 different things to a single outlet. If you overload it all it will do is blow a fuse.
Stick a sweaty finger in there and you will get a charge, I've done it.
@@geraldscott4302 your reply is worded like you're disagreeing but nothing you said contradicts what they did
@@MRdrPROkeithSR I remember someone once said that the Internet is just people aggressively agreeing with each other and I feel like I see an example of that every day lol
@@geraldscott4302 yeah you’re agreeing with me lol
Believe it or not, the cig lighter socket in my truck will *NOT* charge anything, only the seperate 12v socket will. It will however make hot, so it does work...
Also, lots of manufacturers have put in classic home style outlets in their upper tier vehicles in the past few years, so I am sure you are correct, the USB and those will phase out the old hot tubes. I was like you and fascinated by them in my parents cars, neither smoked but I did use it to burn a few things... including myself on one occasion, that was a learning day :P
Also! I believe my 1996 Towncar had six seperate ashtrays, which was always funny to show friends, but not use, since Ive never smoked :P
Yep. My 2011 Crown Victoria only has one (car built on the same platform) but I was doing some stuff removing the rear door panels and found ashtray spots inside the rear doors
my 2001 cadillac deville had 2 cig lights and ash trays in the rear doors and 3 in the front
I have a 2001 Ford expedition Eddie Bauer cigarette lighter with the pop out still in with two ash trays in the back and one in the front
1994 Oldsmobile cutlass Supreme I had an ash tray in every door... and one shitty cupholder in the center armrest. I went to pick and pull and grabbed a 5th one to replace my coin holder with an ashtray. I didn't smoke nor did I let anyone smoke in my car.
@@charlie_nolan
Some P71s have hybrid pull out trays that have more of a generic tray that's not intended as an ashtray bit keep the outlet bit as a cheap way to uavr an additional outlet.
I noticed some B roll footage of an E120 Corolla shift bezel. My grandma optioned the smokers package, which came with the lighter and a cup shaped removable ashtray. She didn't smoke so it was odd why she optioned it but it was cool playing with the lighter and the ashtray.
I honestly hope that new cars will stop phasing out circular power outlets. You can do so much more with the Circular ones than just boring USB ports!
Interesting video! I remember as a kid I used to play with the lighter and thought it was so cool. Cars should still include them as having something that can create a spark is always handy, never know when you’ll need it and not everybody carries a lighter.
As far as smoking goes, businesses should be able to dictate whether or not they want to allow it inside their business. I choose not to smoke but smokers should be able to go to a bar/restaurant that allows it. It isn’t the states place to tell a business that they cannot allow smoking inside their property.
exactly i dont smoke but if you want to allow it in your business thats on you if people dont like it shop else were
Great video as always, I’m a smoker and drive older cars but funnily enough have never actually used the built in cigarette lighter, always my trusty clipper. I did attempt to once and then it caught fire 😂 luckily not a bad fire just melting some of my trim
Great video essay as always, Zack!
It's very entertaining and fascinating to watch. Also, One long gone car feature that I would love to see covered in a Shooting Cars video essay is the three on the tree shifter layout.^^
I learned to drive in a 1963 Rambler with such a shifter. Now it would have to be, why do cars no longer have shifters at all? Three of my four vehicles have manual transmissions, and I love them.
That would be a great 1.
Linkage assembly's being so complex Vs a cable or 2.
Also the abundance of tilt and telescoping steering columns that are now current. However I would also like to see this video.
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@@geraldscott4302 My brand new 2022 Ford Bronco is a stick shift. Why I need 6 gears, two of which are overdrive is a mystery. 1st is so short I have been starting it in 2nd.
From research I did years ago, I found that the lighters have such a late diameter because they were actually designed to light cigars!
Nice point!
The 12 volt power outlet circular shape may be obsolete or extinct in 2033 and replace USB type C. Its good.
I remember in a Goofy Movie that Goofy used it to heat a can of alphabet soup for Max when they took refuge in their car as Bigfoot attacked.
I would say you skipped a section where accessories where made to plug into the lighter for power so instead of doing some hard change there was the soft transition to the 12v outlet
Ya, smoking used to be a big thing in America. They even had cars and light trucks with 2 piece side windows for the passenger and driver. You could crack open the smaller window to vent the smoke out of the car. Not to long ago I saw a car manufacturer offer a smoker package option on a new car. It consisted of a round ash tray that fits in the cup holder. I can't remember if it included a way to light your cigarette and don't remember what car I was looking at when I saw the option.
In the 1930's, even German airships like the Hindenburg, despite being hydrogen-filled and thus an extreme fire hazard, had a designated smoking room. It was kept pressurized just to be safe. But smoking was so popular on both sides of the Atlantic that it was feared that *not* providing facilities for it would turn away passengers. Or worse, inspire someone to smuggle a lighter into a less-supervised area of the ship.
The window vents (aka "wing windows") were not designed for smokers.
They were made to simply force air into the cab, or suck it out, while making the forward part of the door glass functional with simpler window crank designs.
But the fact that it was able to so gracefully suck air out, and in such a convenient location, made them perfect accessories for people who smoked.
Vent windows were for ventilation, they weren't for smokers, but they worked great for that.
You're thinking about Porsche. They still offer smoker's packages and they are worth it.
@@danielbishop1863 Well, the Hindenburg wasn't intended to use hydrogen, they only used it because the US stopped supplying them with helium
They were great for burning a roach.
Gone away?... I've NEVER seen a car without one. My 2022 Porche 911 GT3RS has one. A $230k car...
EDIT: spell check
I’m also fascinated by which auto makers still have cigarette lighters and which have ditched them, and when. My current car is a 2010 Hyundai Elantra, in the base trim package. Despite being sold 2-3 years after the release of the first iPhone, it still has a cigarette lighter and ash tray. You can see the start of the transition, though, because it also has a second 12V outlet with _no_ lighter in it, and the stereo has both a 3.5mm aux jack and a USB port.
I’m trying pretty hard to remember if my parents’ cars have cigarette lighters or ashtrays in them. My mom drives a BMW 5-series from around 2013, and I’m fairly sure it has an ashtray but no lighter.
I have a 2010 Mercedes S class it has 2 lighters and they made those cars up to 2013 idk if the newer generation had them fitted or if they got removed all together
My 2009 Hyundai Genesis still came with a cigarette lighter and an ashtray. I've only used the ashtray for coin storage - and only used the cigarette lighter to light a cigarette once or twice (I was only a "social smoker" at most - I don't smoke at all now). There is a second 12V round socket (no lighter) inside the center console.
My very first car was a 1999 Ford Contour, that one had the smoker's package - again I used the portable ashtray for coin storage (and it occupied one of the two cupholders).
Now you use it to let your weed
In Europe lighters and ashtrays remained a standard fitting to almost every car into the early 2000s, I imagine the French and Eastern Europeans played a big part in lighters staying around so long.
My 2000 saab 9-3 coupe got both haha
My car, a Dacia Duster, was made in 2016 and still has two of them. 🤣 And it doesn't have USB. I use an adaptor.
They are still in cars. My Golf 7 from 2017 still has it.
I had a 2011 Citroén Berlingo and that car did not have a cigarete lighter
In Europe (or at least Czechoslovakia) around 70's and 80's there was a special 12 volt outlet for cars, diferent than the lighter one. It was used mainly for worklights when inspecting the engine. Or police radios etc.
what is a Czechoslovakia
@@Olype well, artificially created country which became the Czech Republic and Slovakia later
@@Olype do you live under a rock or are you just 12
Ahh the cigarette lighter, that useless thing that got lost so you could plug in your CD player 12v and run the adapter thing to the tape deck. Was also handy for the Sega Game Gear on road trips because that thing ate AA batteries faster than one of those OG 50lb boom boxes did D-Cells, so using the 12v adaptor you could run it the whole drive.
Hey man great video thank you for the effort, however I think you are missing a point. These Outlets have remained the same and not imitated our home standards because our homes are in 24 volts where cars are only in 12 volts. This is due to the fact that starters of cars are powered in 12 volts by the continus electric current led acid batteries.
Hope this is clear
Enjoy your day
burned my finger once with one of these from my father's old work car, didnt stop me from pressing and popping it though. i would love a video on "junk cooler", the air vent under the steering wheel to cool your crotch area.
My 1980 Datsun has a lighter outlet that works perfectly to charge up my cell phone. Probably it was used for the first time ever in 2021 since the car was never smoked in. 👍
My parents had a 1972 Oldmobile 98 when I was little. I don't remember much about the front seats, but each door in the back seat had its own cigarette lighter and ash tray. Of course there were nights I would push the lighter in and wait for it to pop out, then enjoy the warm glow it produced. It also head the floor-mounted headlight switch. Not to mention, a 455 4-bbl on one end and a trunk you could fit a family of ten in at the other end, without removing the spare tire.
All of my Hyundai Ponys have rear ashtrays. As a kid, I remember putting stuff in them and pulling them out of the door cards.
As a kid I caused quite extensive wiring damage when left alone briefly in it as I also enjoyed the lovely orange glow and by my teeny-tiny brain's deduction would be so much brighter and last so much longer.
I mean, left with enough time I would have been proved right 😂
I miss the REAL spare tire!
@@petenielsen6683 My 1999 Matiz came with a full sized one. Still have it, alloy and all.
i had a similar childhood experience with the ashtrays in the back of my dad's 1999 Chevy blazer as a kid, just playing around with 'em not really knowing what they were, though we didn't have separate lighters back there by then
I disagree with the 12v socket going away. There are plenty of powered devices that will not work with a +5v USB socket. The pump for your inflatables for one.
I literally just wanted to know how to use this old pickup trucks cigarette lighter. But man, this was ridiculously good for something so short 🎉
These outlets can supply around 175w -300w (depending how vehicle is wired)comfortably because of the big outlet. USB for now only supplies about 25w. They are working on USB that supplies 100-300w but are far more prone to having overheating and shorting issues.
Trying to get more power through a small connection point has to be very secure and a higher voltage, but that creates it's own array of problems.
Exactly, well said. I don't realistically see the 12v socket being dropped any time ever.
The round car outlet is 12V DC, and household outlet in America is 120V AC. I imagine 12V ports will stay around because the automotive aftermarket gave it new purpose: portable air compressors, inverters, radar detectors, etc.
This exactly.
And for USB charging, it's much easier to upgrade a 12v adapter for new wattages and standards, compared to a built-in USB port. Even the USB ports in the video (5-7 W) are already pretty weak by today's standards.
Smoking tobacco became "something of the past"?
Uh huh...
American bro
You could do a piece of how cars went from Comfortable Bench Seats to Horrible Bucket Seats, and adding a Nut Cracking Console between the Seats
Great video! To anyone who's interested, the concept that is referred to in the conclusion of the video (the comparison between a floppy disc icon as a save symbol and an actual floppy disc being obsolete) is called skueomorph. There's a very interesting Vsauce video going into the subject iirc
Skeuomorphic design, more specifically. It also applies to the common phone handset icon that cell phones use to this day.
Excellent video as always. Loved the intro. I have a suggestion for a future video to be about use of sealed beam head lamps. I did research on them a while ago and found that it was something the government was very strict about in the USA whereas in European countries less so. IIRC halogen headlamps with replaceable bulbs were not in widespread use over here until the 90's.
Hell our 2015 Ford f-650 still has sealed beams and my dad said that the parts guy didn't believe him!
Yeah the US is far behind.
Matrix headlights
Camera mirrors
I'm a smoker (for 29 years) but I never use them. I very rarely smoke in a vehicle or inside anywhere. I prefer to be outside.
Stop. Your destroying yourself.
@@doge7831 damage is done. No point in stopping anymore.
@@KenBober you could reduce the damage greatly by stopping. also how much money do you use on cigarettes every year? exactly, stop now. the longer you’ll keep on smoking the more money you’ll waste and the more you are damaging your lungs.
@@doge7831 To late. Give up and move on to someone else.
@@KenBober it’s never too late to stop.
I really appreciate your videos all the best to your beautiful Channel hopefully your subscribers and viewers will keep increasing 🇴🇲
it's a little bit sad, because you can use the lighter in many other ways, and it doen't bother anyone. and ashtrays are a very good thing, as you can use it as a garbage can, as many people trow the cigrarrettes out of the window, and that's obviously not cool. at least some of them would use the ashtray
My grandpa once took me for a ride in his 1999 Porsche Boxter which had a cigarette lighter. Being raised Mormon, I barely even new what a cigarette was, let alone a car having a cigarette lighter (I was about 10 at the time 2011 or so). I pulled the lighter out and saw that one end had a spiraled red light on it. Thinking it was maybe a button of some kind, I put my right index finger on the light, which you probably guessed already was the red hot end of the cigarette lighter. I got 2nd degree burns, but the humiliation 11 years later is what burns the most.
Note: I watched my finger as it healed over time, and there was no sign that my fingerprint disappeared. It just healed like normal. There’s also no scaring or deformation of my fingertip which I’m shocked by
Fingerprints are weird like that. You really have to damage deep to alter them. I've lost fingerprints to chemical burns, and later in life, a bad flare up of psoriasis. We're talking just dead smooth fingertips. They always grew back, unaltered.
Exact same thing happen to me as a kid as well. Even when I knew what it was I never saw anyone use it, not even my mother who was a smoker. Tip of my middle finger burned into brown crisp like a toast. Eventually the skin came off and it was bleeding some white liquid for a while until it healed completely, can't even tell which hand or finger it was. We just put a bandage and I went to play sports as I had a game that day. I just remember giving everbody the middle finger because I couldn't hold my stick otherwise.
@@gale7682 haha no way bro, you play lax or hockey?
@@geese5170 Hockey but at the time it was off-season so we attended a floorball tournament. It looked quite funny since you don't have any gloves on.
I liked using the cigerette lighter and ashtray in my old camry, it felt so classy!
I was really excited to find a fully-working lighter on my first car. I don't smoke, and I don't intend to let anyone smoke in my car, but it was such a cool little piece of technology I wasn't expecting.
At least they still "alive" unlike Floppy disk
We never smoked however the older cars we used to have cigarette lighter that we had no use for. I decided to hold the lighter in trying to burn the element out instead I almost got my fingers burned off. One of my friends did the same thing and started the dash on FIRE.
I appreciate the apology for making me feel old 😂. Only 42 but dang, this video was super nostalgic
The only thing I've used the round power in my car is the power the device that adds air to the car tire. I also have a phone charger that plugs into it.
"Adds air to the car tire." A compressor, basically, yeah?
It would be interesting to see a video essay on the weird variety in satnav/infotainment systems from the 90s and 2000s. There's some extremely bizarre designs and styles out there using cell towers and gyros to guess where you are
Agree, those are really quirky and weird but that makes them very interesting.
There was even a timed 8 track cassette prototype. Kind of like a read along with mother sat nav 😂
@@skylined5534 There's a BBC newsreel on youtube about that called "Sat nav - without a satellite - in 1971? | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive" It's pretty clever but has a few drawbacks which are shown in the video.
I think this is something fundamentally human, we all carry stuff that no longer serves a purpose , yet somehow still has meaning.
Well I’m glad my ass loves oldies cars and will less likley own a car that has USB outlets
Very interesting - as I build scale model cars, I often notice these sort of antiquated features which disappear over time.
Hopefully all these iPad dash screens will go away 😝
I'm actually glad cars have these instead of regular outlets, because if you import a car from an other country or buy a foreign car, you have no problem using the accessories. Now imagine using US outlet with UK or EU plug with some added bulky adapters
Basically every item that is plugged into a car uses USB, so it doesn’t matter what country you are in
The one in my truck is chrome and fancy. 1986 F150. It's an XLT Lariat, and it's the only 12v outlet in the truck, and it's the factory radio head unit in the truck so I just gotta leave the ashtray open to have my Bluetooth FM thing plugged in. Also it has floor mounted high beam selectors. I love the high beam switch
I still find it funny how the government told the people that Smoking cigarettes is completely safe and beneficial to your health
My 2006 ford ranger has the 12v connector spot and also a real cigarette lighter that heats up when you hold it down for a few seconds.
Hey I just got my first RX-7 and I had to thank you for your advice and videos. I love your video essay style content and hope to see you continue making it in the future.
oh wow those floor mounted high beams! my older co worker was talking about how those used to be a thing when he was driving. so cool to see that it will be talked about in one of your videos
I remember when I first met my wife, I was visiting from out of town and her mom let me borrow her 20 year old Cadillac that was barely holding together, and I tried turning off the high beams only to find out that the high beams were the ONLY headlights that worked! Apologies to anyone I might have blinded back then... Although the fancy blue headlights on new cars today are even worse, I'm sure. I also miss the gas filler cap being behind the rear license plate, you never had to worry which side of the car was facing the pump.
My 1990 f150 has floor mounted highbeams
Like most option packages, I think the $200 - $500 range includes a bit more than a lighter and ashtray. Recalling 60s vintage VW had a lighter for $8 and the optional AM radio was another $85. Everything was single and there was no package deal to be had.
My work truck western star came with ashtray and push lighter it was new 2023
See you in another 20 years when a video about USB ports will be made to explain how phones used to be charged. 🔋
Mentioning the floppy disks, I noticed theres a weird thing thats fashionable with younger kids and adults like 12 to 20 I'ma say, that think its cool to not be able to recognized old tech. I'm 24 and thanks to to my grandpa I've been able to recognize tools, farm equipment, and even old lab equipment like oscilloscopes, wave generators and old mass spec machines. My grandpa was a chemist/professor and my grandma a geologist so being well spoken and having a decent understanding of the sciences was a corner stone of my upbringing around them and I thought it was great but I noticed my nieces and nephews and my girlfriends little brother are "unable" to recognize simple things but especially floppy disks and I know they know what it is and they refer to anything made before the 2000s as "from the 1900s" it's just weird to act like we werent using this stuff 20 years ago some of us even 10 or 15. Old technology is the building blocks to the world we have today and the least anyone can do is learn to recognize. Not even learn how it works just maybe what it does and what its a precursor to.
I totally agree. Floppy discs were there untill 2003 or 2004s and saying that new generation don't know is actually weird. Can't they learn a 20 year old technology? I know Ford Model T which is a 120 year old car and I born in 80s.
Im 39, and still don't know why they called those (i think 5 inch?) floppy disks when they were in a hard case. O remember computer games would come with like 8 of them you had to upload, took all day, just to find out your Macintosh Preforma couldn't handle it.
The older larger ones however, were actually floppy. If you know what a Commodore 64 is, then you know what im talking about. Maybe that name just carried over from those.
It was crazy growing up in a time where you had to call a phone number to get the exact time to set your clocks, and was also right on the cusp of all the technology we have now.
You should do one about the phase-out of traditional single-DIN modular car stereos in favor of the 7" and 8" (even 12"!) infotainment touchscreens that have taken over with Apple Car Play and Android Auto.
Oh yes I hate those! Especially in the late 90's when Ford made everything on the Taurus and Escort oval-shaped, and included the HVAC controls on the same panel as the radio. Crutchfield did sell an adapter for those, but it was way expensive and a big hassle. At least new cars usually come with Bluetooth now, so replacing the head unit isn't as big an issue. But up until 2019 I was still playing my music through one of those cassette-shaped adapters, my 2001 Honda Accord came with both a tape player and CD changer.
It's honestly odd to know younger generations don't even know what a floppy disk. So glad I grew up with a lot of old technology so I tend to recognize much of it. But dang the floppy disks are still huge. Yet pretty cool.
it does feel odd. from my perspective, everyone learns about floppy disks at some point. to me, people who dont know what a floppy disk is are probably children who are way too young to know anything substantial yet, but then again i also grew up with old tech so that could be a factor.
I had an old car that instead of having cigarette lighter for the power outlet, it had a mono jack outlet that's made for a plug like the one for an electric guitar.
When I hear car cigarette lighter I think of the scene from Goofy movie where Goofy heats up some soup with one.
I dont think the usb can entirely replace the circular outlet because they can do more than just charge your phone, unless replaced with normal outlets there are plenty of things that can be used with the circular outlet like dash cams, vacuums they can be used to power external cords and etc. If anything, they will be replaced with normal outlets (obviously depending on where you live in the world you have different "normal" outlets)
First video I've seen from this channel. I like it already. I was born mid 1970s, so I grew up in cars with the lighters, and have seen how their implementation has altered throughout the years. In the present time I have a strange juxtaposition of times and cars: my mom has a 1992 Chrysler LeBaron that she bought used in 2014. (Fyi, when she bought it, the car had and still has a total milage count of less than 100,000miles. Approx. 76,000 currently.) Of course, the car, being state of the art in 1992 has two lighter ports up front in the central console with ashtray, as well as an ashtray with lighter in the rear of the central console for the back seat. Recently, my mom bought a newer 20-teens half-track type of car that is equipped with USB ports front to rear. Regardless of having these modern ports, the car is also equipped with a lighter-type port, although no astray.
This was a good one. When I was a young lad (yes; I'm old now) I remember when you had an ashtray and a cigarette lighter in the door armrest at every outboard seating position in a vehicle. That was high-class back then.
The armrest door was the best fidget toy.
Yeah all those lost smokers now vape and the tobacco companies own the vapes or at least the mainstream ones You’ll find a gas stations
i wasnt even born until the late 90s and you still made me feel old when you said kids dont know what a floppy disk is.
I find that useful having a cigarette lighter plug that can power other accessories too. But it'll be better if cars were equipped with 220v sine wave inverter from factory. I don't think I'm gonna miss cigarette lighter at all in the future. I'm now on my progress embedding a 220v socket in my 1988 Cressida so I can plug normal home items in my car.
Also, I think another feature that needs to be added as a standard feature is wireless phone charger.
You'll never see the 220v socket implemented as it's not universal. You won't see the removal of 12v sockets for a long time if ever.
This reminds me of something I heard on the radio this morning. On 106.1fm. They talked about a viral video of a parent placing a rotary phone on the table and having their teenage kids figure out how to use it. I'm thinking to myself man I'm old , both my parents and my grandparents had rotary phones back in the 80s to Early 90s.
Also had that kid experience of burning my fingers on fiddling around with the car buttons. Last thing I expected to find was some crazy electronic heating coil to burn things with when every smoker I knew kept a lighter in their pocket. Finding out we could plug in phone chargers and other gadgets into the same plug blew my mind decades later.
Im so glad they went away. My father always told me how dangerous they were and I never had the balls to touch one not alone play with one
I remember in that A Goodfy Movie scene when goofy used the cigarette plug to heat up a can of soup
I feel like the lighters should still be implemented. Makes a great way to start a fire if your stuck.
Anyone else remember these, and using them for a Firestarter for camp fires and/or barbecues?
Because people starting inventing terms like "second hand smoke" and even funnier, "global warming" lmao
When I was a kid I burned my thumb on these since I didn't know what it was. Also these are great at starting fires.
I want them to start adding usb-c ports in cars. That would be most baller.
My dads 2015 Mercedes C300 Has a lighter so I guess they didn’t go away completely
USB are cigarette lighters for E cigs. More things change the more they stay the same.
My 1990 f150 has floor mounted highbeams!
I had a spiral shaped scar on my thumb for YEARS from one of those lmao
My memory of these is Goofy used a cigarette lighter to heat up Alphabet soup for Max in the Goofy Movie
It's weird for me that this needs to be explained to people. Did I get old?