Practically 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 Audi, with an embarrassing 269 issues reported per 100 automobiles.
Nevertheless, some of the fascinating discoveries of the J.D. Energy Preliminary High quality Examine (labelled as a “key discovering”, no much less) involved not annoyance with the dearth of bodily buttons, nor, amazingly, intrusive bongs from speed-warning techniques, however a marked improve 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 totally different sizes and shapes [of containers] which might be more and more accessible,” says the report.
So 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 vehicles for a number of Huge Gulps. Paying via the nostril for a elaborate 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 area—or, in some vehicles, 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? Almost definitely gargantuan Stanley cups, big 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 this time’s vehicles is at a premium—particularly now that ever-bigger touchscreens have turn 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 prompt that the variety of cup holders in a US car was some of the vital elements in clinching the acquisition choice for potential auto patrons. That it stays simply as important at this time should rankle with auto software program engineers, however it doesn’t shock Chris Fischer, Nissan’s go-to engineer for cup holders. “That cup holders work properly is necessary 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 workforce 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 day-after-day, it’ll bitter their need to need this car once more.”
“Touchpoints are critically necessary,” agrees Dick Powell, cofounder 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 might 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?”
