What Makes a Car Lovable? It’s Not the Tech, It’s the Cup Holders Leave a comment

Almost 100,000 automobile patrons of 2025 model-year autos have been requested what they considered their gleaming new rides. The outcomes are revealing, to say the least. Wish to know who was the worst performer? That ignominy goes to Audi, with an embarrassing 269 issues reported per 100 automobiles.

Nonetheless, one of the vital attention-grabbing discoveries of the J.D. Energy Preliminary High quality Research (labelled as a “key discovering”, no much less) involved not annoyance with the shortage of bodily buttons, nor, amazingly, intrusive bongs from speed-warning methods, however a marked enhance in “cup-holder frustration”.

“Whereas it appeared like producers had cup holders found out … producers are struggling to maintain up with having the ability to accommodate all of the completely different sizes and styles [of containers] which are more and more out there,” says the report.

So it appears that evidently regardless of the auto trade’s obsession with software-defined automobiles, many purchasers would forego any variety of digital doohickeys, as long as there was sufficient room of their new automobiles for a number of Large Gulps. Paying via the nostril for a elaborate new automobile full of tech—ADAS, ambient lighting, back-groping seats, canine modes—doesn’t cease auto patrons from complaining about insufficiently expandable beverage bays.

For a number of years, this long-running annual benchmarking report has suggested automobile manufacturers to pay nearer consideration to the cup-holder kvetching. The cylindrical voids of area—or, in some automobiles, flip-out trays, door areas, fancy holsters, or hinged pockets—are nonetheless too small, gripe a lot of these surveyed. Too small for what, although? Most definitely gargantuan Stanley cups, large Yeti Gallon Ramblers and related such bladder-busters, the spilt contents of which may drench a desert into bloom.

Despite the fact that middle console actual property in right this moment’s automobiles is at a premium—particularly now that ever-bigger touchscreens have turn out to be seemingly important in each self-respecting digital cockpit—America’s (and more and more the Center East and Australia’s) big-drink tradition dictates that automakers not scrimp on cup storage.

It’s the Little Issues

Twenty years in the past, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report steered that the variety of cup holders in a US automobile was one of the vital important elements in clinching the acquisition determination for potential auto patrons. That it stays simply as very important right this moment should rankle with auto software program engineers, nevertheless it doesn’t shock Chris Fischer, Nissan’s go-to engineer for cup holders. “That cup holders work effectively is vital to buyer satisfaction,” Fischer tells WIRED. “It’s a key decider when shopping for a automobile.”

Working from Nissan’s North American technical middle in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Fischer is the corporate’s senior supervisor of car efficiency improvement, and, together with a staff of “cabin utility” engineers, he has toiled to enhance in-car beverage storage since 2015, when poor cup holder efficiency adversely impacted Nissan’s J.D. Energy benchmarking scores.

Cup-holder design issues intensely to many customers, he says. “In the event that they’re mad a few touchpoint every single day, it’ll bitter their need to need this automobile once more.”

“Touchpoints are critically vital,” agrees Dick Powell, cofounder of London-headquartered design and innovation firm Seymourpowell. “Nice design is basically about making issues higher, and whenever you go right into a automobile showroom, the touchpoints are the primary interactions you could have with the automobile. How does the [door] deal with really feel? What’s it like opening the door? The place are the cup holders?”