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. Need to know who was the worst performer? That ignominy goes to Audi, with an embarrassing 269 issues reported per 100 autos.
Nevertheless, probably the most fascinating discoveries of the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (labelled as a “key discovering”, no much less) involved not annoyance with the lack of physical buttons, nor, amazingly, intrusive bongs from speed-warning methods, however a marked improve 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 completely different styles and sizes [of containers] which are more and more accessible,” says the report.
So it appears that evidently regardless of the auto business’s obsession with software-defined vehicles, 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 by the nostril for a flowery new automotive full of tech—ADAS, ambient lighting, back-groping seats, dog 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 a lot of these surveyed. Too small for what, although? Almost 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 heart console actual property in right this moment’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 Middle 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 advised that the variety of cup holders in a US car was probably the most vital elements in clinching the acquisition determination for potential auto patrons. That it stays simply as important right this moment 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 nicely is essential 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 car efficiency improvement, 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 customers, he says. “In the event that they’re mad a few touchpoint every single day, it’ll bitter their want to need this car once more.”
“Touchpoints are critically essential,” 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 automotive showroom, the touchpoints are the primary interactions you’ve gotten with the automotive. How does the [door] deal with really feel? What’s it like opening the door? The place are the cup holders?”
