There are other formats than MP3, such as WAV that are lossless compression, ie, the original signal is completely unchanged. And when you copy music from a CD you can select those formats if you desire.
I assume that today automobile players can handle more formats that MP3, as just about all portable players can.
I was prepared to post a wholehearted agreement with the OP, but after reading all of the posts. . . well, you all make good points. I wore out 2 CD decks on my current car. First they start skipping more and more, then they wonāt eject the CD. All those pesky āmoving partsā wear out. Nevertheless, I too think its premature to eliminate the CD deck. Maybe you just bought / borrowed the CD, maybe your MP3 playerās in your gymbag, other car, battery dead, etc. I always keep a CD in the deck for such situations.
I guess I canāt use the word scam, but the whole satellite radio thing seems like a setup to me. They āgiveā you 3 or 6 months āfreeā when you buy the car to get you hooked on it, then they stay in your pocket for $10 or $15 a month basically forever because they know you wonāt want to give it up. Youāve gotta be careful with these subscription services, $10/month here, $15/month there, next thing you know, youāre spending hundreds of dollars a month on subscriptions and recurring fees. I buy a CD once and its mine for the rest of my life.
I have an aftermarket head unit in my Mustang. It has a 3.5mm Aux. jack and a USB port as well as a CD/DVD player. Iāve never actually listened to CD in it the 3 years Iāve had it. I just put my music on an extra 16GB flash drive I had laying around and just use that. Itās much more convenient IMHO than dealing with discs.
Anyone who pays full price for XM is getting ripped off, @āEd Frugalā The quality of programming simply isnāt worth what they try to charge.
However, Iāve usually found that theyāre willing to charge me $30 for 6 months. 5 bucks a month isnāt bad. Iām not addicted to it, however, so if they donāt want to give me that price, I just cancel. A couple weeks later, they come crawling back and offer me the cheap deal again. 
As with any purchase itās smart to evaluate whether what youāre paying for the service is worth what you get out of the service. When I started doing that, a whole lot of services got cancelled. Itās amazing how much free money you find floating around when you donāt have a cable bill, magazine subscriptions, etc.
I have a CD player!!! My CD player comes with an optional 2016 Hyundai Elantra, better than a Sonic, Spark & Cruzeā¦ & cheaper than the Cruze. Sub-$13,000 is pricey for a CD playerā¦b-b-b-buuutttt the speakers are OK & you may not need to upgradeā¦& it averages 39mpg with 15% city driving. Thatās how versatile my CD player is.
I think I pay $22 for the first car. The second one they offered the $5 deal for six months then something like $12. I didnāt bite and I really agree that the programming is terrible unless you like music on long drives. I like old radio, good talk shows, or books on drives and they have neither anymore.
Man, I may have to take a course at the senior center on thumb drives and ipods, etc. I donāt have a clue. I just bought a Dawes CD last week. I didnāt see that it came in a thumb drive and wouldnāt know where to put it anyway. Still wonder about the books on CDs at the library but maybe theyāll have a way to download them on a thumb nail I mean drive.
We had free electronics recycling day Saturday so I was able to dump a couple computers, a real CRT display, and a couple non-digital TVs. I did save the one analog TV Iāve got left that will take a VCR and a CD though. No thumb drive slot though.
I do like having a decent radio in the car and occasionally play a CD although CDs mostly get played on long drives. My first twelve years of driving I did not have a radio! 1973 Corolla lacked such creature comforts. And yet I managed fine on multiple cross country trips. Paid attention to my driving, saw the countryside, and did my own humming and singing. 
Luckily I do not depend on a cd, or itunes or whatever, I listen to free radio, occasional cd till it starts skipping, sure we do books on tape on cd for a long drive, sure wife has whatever service for radio, but the biggest wish for me would be a rewind, like joey or tivo or whatever for radio broadcasts.
I do not even mind not listening to anything and enjoying the scenery as I drive.
Now that reminds me of a commercil I heard today, you can stream all your recorded shows etc. to wherever you are even on vacation, now if I am on vacation I want to experience my surroundings, not watch dancing with the stars or whatever on some tv in some motel room, and call that fulfilling.
The comments so far indicate the car manufacturers are correct and deleting CD players from audio systems is acceptable to most buyers. I guess I will just have to make the adjustment when the time comes.
Once I got my iPod, the only time I played a CD was to copy the music selections I like the best into iTunes and then to the iPod. I like that I can select shuffle so the music isnāt played in the same order all the time and you can get a iPod shuffle for well under a $100.
The radio just doesnāt have my music anymore.
I donāt see CDs in cars very often any more. Half of my customers have a USB cable laying on the center console but a cable isnāt necessary in newer cars, the music can be played via Bluetooth connection. I donāt see ipods much anymore, people use their phone for media storage.
In truth, itās probably been over a year since I last turned the radio on in my car. Maybe two. But, than (then?) winterās growing closer. In nice weather Iād just as soon hear the wind rushing through my hair (I still have it all, I might as well enjoy it). In winter, perhaps Iāll pull my Marilyn Monroe CDs out again.
Yeah, I recently consolidated / changed my internet, cable, phone, burglar alarm services. Its true, as soon as you call a company to cancel the service, they offer you a big $$ discount to stay. Sometimes its about principle though, charge me $10 a month for NOT making any long distance calls, I just want your company out of my life, I donāt care how good a deal the fios is. . .
For those who like books on tape, a lot of public libraries have books on CD that you can check out for free, also a large selection of movies and tv shows on DVD you can check out for home use, great for stuff youād like to see but donāt necessarily want to own a copy of, and you canāt beat the price. 
Now that Iāve got wireless internet, Iām considering cancelling the cable altogether and just watching youtube videos, much better than the dreck that passes for television entertainment today.
And Iā ve gotta say, I HATE the shuffle feature. I like to control the order in which I listen to my music, seems like whatever song/genre Iām NOT in the mood to hear is the one the player selects to play next. On my current MP3 player, āshuffleā is the first choice on every menu, and it grates on my nerves every time I have to scroll off of it.
I think I pay $22 for the first car. The second one they offered the $5 deal for six months then something like $12.
Iāve had Sirius/XM for more than 8 years now. Those prices have got to be the lowest level package they offer which would be very limited selection indeed. I could see how it seems like a rip off if thatās all youāre getting. You would have to like current musicā¦a lot! to be able to live with that.
I have full access subscriptions including internet streaming on 3 radios. I run one older non-subscription radio streaming via wi-fi in the house. I like the radio interface better than the phone app. The selection is quite broad and encompassingā¦
Huh? @Shadowfax says $30 for 6 months. @TwinTurbo says the $22 for the first car. . . something like $12 for the second . . āhave got to be the lowest level package they offerā. Really? I mean REALLY? $22 (and more, by the looks of things) to listen to the RADIO?! Is that per year or per month? Per year, Iād say, well, okay, maybe. . .
Unless youāre a travelling salesman, I donāt see how anybody could listen to $22 a month worth of radio, just one cheapskateās opinion. . .
We all make different choices as to what we spend our money on. I drive a lot and enjoy programming that is offered on XM that isnāt offered anywhere else (Startalk, for instance).
I donāt enjoy it enough to pay the, frankly, exorbitant āstandardā price for it, but 5 bucks a month is chump change and Iām willing to part with it in exchange for the programming. Iām sure others could pay what Iām paying, but perhaps theyāre willing to pay extra not to have to deal with talking to some telemarketing dink from XM every 6 months to get the deal renewed. Thatās OK too.
Needless to say, my financial situation is just fine, and if it ever became not just-fine for whatever reason, things like XM subscriptions would be the first to go.
Provided someone can afford a luxury, whatās wrong with them buying it if thatās what they want?
I guess I really donāt know what TT is talking about. How you would get internet streaming on a car radio has me stumped. When I signed up there were three options: radio, weather, traffic with the navigation system. I chose radio and weather which gives me radar, weather reports and weather warnings. Thatās what I need while traveling out of state. It does me no good to hear about a tornado warning for Hickory County on the standard radio and have no idea where the heck Hickory County is or what state. At any rate Iām not aware of any other offering by Sirius for me anyway.
Paying for radio just seems dumb but my main reason for not having it is I do not want even one penny of my money finding its way to Howard Stern.
How you would get internet streaming on a car radio has me stumped.
Almost all smart phones can connect to the internet. The cell connects to the car via bluetooth. Iāve used it when in areas that donāt have many radio channels aroundā¦So I stream Pandora. But it really eats up your data plan.