Almost 100,000 automotive 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 Audiwith an embarrassing 269 issues reported per 100 autos.
Nonetheless, some of the 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 lack of bodily buttonsnor, amazingly, intrusive bongs from speed-warning programs, however a marked enhance in “cup-holder frustration”.
“Whereas it appeared like producers had cup holders discovered … producers are struggling to maintain up with having the ability to accommodate all of the totally different styles and sizes (of containers) which might be more and more obtainable,” says the report.
So evidently regardless of the auto business’s obsession with software-defined autosmany purchasers would forego any variety of digital doohickeys, as long as there was sufficient room of their new vehicles for a number of Large Gulps. Paying by way of the nostril for a flowery new automotive filled with 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 automotive manufacturers to pay nearer consideration to the cup-holder kvetching. The cylindrical voids of house—or, in some vehicles, flip-out trays, door areas, fancy holsters, or hinged pockets—are nonetheless too small, gripe lots of these surveyed. Too small for what, although? More than likely gargantuan Stanley cupslarge Yeti Gallon Ramblers and comparable such bladder-busters, the spilt contents of which might drench a desert into bloom.
Though heart console actual property in at present’s vehicles is at a premium—particularly now that ever-bigger touchscreens have change into 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 recommended that the variety of cup holders in a US car was some of the important components in clinching the acquisition resolution for potential auto patrons. That it stays simply as important at present should rankle with auto software program engineers, but it surely doesn’t shock Chris Fischer, Nissan’s go-to engineer for cup holders. “That cup holders work nicely is vital to buyer satisfaction,” Fischer tells WIRED. “It’s a key decider when shopping for a automotive.”
Working from Nissan’s North American technical heart in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Fischer is the corporate’s senior supervisor of auto efficiency growth, 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 shoppers, he says. “In the event that they’re mad a few touchpoint each day, it’ll bitter their need to need this car once more.”
“Touchpoints are critically vital,” agrees Dick Powellcofounder of London-headquartered design and innovation firm Seymourpowell. “Nice design is basically about making issues higher, and while you go right into a automotive showroom, the touchpoints are the primary interactions you will have with the automotive. How does the (door) deal with really feel? What’s it like opening the door? The place are the cup holders?”
