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Kawoomba comments on The cup-holder paradox - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (78)
Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions.
Including good cupholders isn't a trivial problem, at all. From silicone cushioning to automatic cup-locking, to lighting, to thermoplastic insets, to accommodating a vast range of different sizes, from coffee cups to super-gulp 1.5 liter monstrosities, the list goes on. Compare to: What is the optimal can size, and form? Seems easy enough, yet far from a "solved" or trivial problem.
There are immense safety issues: If they impede the driver in his normal operation of the car, the manufacturer could be liable to lawsuits. Mustn't impede airbags, even using the largest fitting cups, or liable for lawsuits. Must be secure from spilling (not only an issue for 4x4 offroaders, but also for normal cars on the occasional bumpy road, or going up and down a ramp), or liable for lawsuits.
There are people specifically responsible for designing cupholders, up to whole companies, in fact. I remember an article stating that there were man-years dedicated just to the cupholder for some specific car model.
Real estate in a car is at a premium, especially the easily accessible portion. Accommodating someone who wants 3 beverages within easy reach (such as yourself) may annoy someone who just wants one, and doesn't like the way so many cupholders wreak havoc with other elements of the interior design (which you listed as an even bigger priority).
Outside of the US (say Europe), cupholders have a much lower priority (at least according to an article I'm just now reading). Eating and drinking cupious amounts in a car - while not unusual - isn't as common everywhere as it is in the US. (Obviously this point doesn't apply to car models that are manufactured exclusively for the US market.)
Indeed, I seldom drink anything while driving, the times I do I just place my drink on the passenger's seat, and I'm not sure whether I've ever even noticed cup-holders in a car.
Fellow European checking in, I can confirm that cup holders are disgraceful things that clutter up space because those overweight Americans just can't go for five minutes without ingesting water sweetened with corn syrup.
(we have an unobtrusive cup-holder between the backs of the front seats, I don't remember ever using it)
I don't think Europeans really think that about Americans, but I suspect a cup-holder, while convenient, might also give the car a bit of a subtle "low brow" feel that make people slightly less comfortable in spending large amounts of money on it. A bit like how a comfortable bike seat may be better and more comfortable by all metrics, but be shunned because comfortable seats are for pussies. And from a business perspective, if 1% of people complain about cup-holders (but buy anyway), and 10% of people subconsciously reduce the worth they give to a car because of cup-holders, then including cup-holders is a bad idea!
How prevalent are drive-through restaurants and coffee shops in Europe? I think those are the biggest sources of stuff-to-put-in-cup-holders for most Americans, and it's plausible to me that they're less common in Europe.
They pretty much don't exist. In my 50-odd years of living in the UK, I think I have seen a drive-through exactly once. (It's in a built-up area a mile or two from Heathrow Airport.) I have never seen one anywhere in Europe. And I rarely see drivers eat or drink while driving. In some circumstances, the police may even take the view that you are Driving Without Due Care and Attention.
I don't even know if my car has a cupholder. There's an odd-shaped recess near floor level, between and in front of the front seats, with no obvious function, but I have never had reason to put anything in it. A cupholder is not a thing it would even occur to me to look for when considering a new car.
ETA: Having just been in it, I can see that the "odd-shaped recess" is indeed a cupholder. One learns something every day.
They're rare.
Some fast food restaurants do also have a drive-through window, but IME few people actually use it. I guess that unlike Americans, we're not so strapped for time that it'd be a big deal to park the car and sit down in the restaurant for the ~15 minutes it takes to eat a fast food meal. (I dunno whether this also applies in larger cities or wealthier, more northern parts of Europe, though.)
Irrelevant. Europe gets completely different cars than the US. Some automakers don't even sell the same models in Europe and the US. If European automakers design cars for the US market according to European preferences, THAT is exactly the kind of massive failure in cognition I'm looking for.
You may revise your opinion on cup-holders if you ever spend 3 hours a day commuting on a regular basis.
I know quite a few Europeans who do commute.
I keep loose change in it for when I need it when (say) paying motorway tolls, as my father does; it had never occurred to me to use it for anything else. IIRC my mother keeps stuff like crucifixes and medals of saints in it, and the couple cars I glanced into on my way from the parking lot this morning also contained non-cups such as pieces of paper.
I'm not quick in jumping to conclusions. None of these objections hold any water.
Including good cupholders is trivial. Good cupholders hold cups. The cupholders in a Toyota Camry are great cupholders. They hold small or large cups firmly, and the cups never fall down. This is not a hard design problem. Yet many cars have featured no cupholders, a single cupholder, two tiny cupholders two inches deep that can't hold cups, cupholders too narrow to hold anything large than a 12-oz soda, or collapsible cupholders that collapse.
Impede a driver? Impede airbags? Be serious. There's a massive area of real estate around the armrest, and between the armrest and the stick shift, and in front of the stick shift. A Crown Victoria has a good 3 feet of completely unused space there, and no cup-holder, to the dismay of cops everywhere. It would take another 1 centimeter of width to put good cup-holders in most cars. Secure from spilling? Now you're arguing against yourself. I was pointing out that many cupholders are not secure from spilling, and you object that cupholders are not made secure from spilling because the automakers might get sued if they're not secure from spilling.
Real estate is at a premium, but nobody has ever complained (that I've seen) that the cupholders in their car were too big and ugly, except for a few Lotus drivers defending Lotus' old policy of not making cupholders because you shouldn't be drinking in a Lotus. It only takes an extra centimeter or two required to go from "totally nonfunctional" to "superior".
Outside of the US, people buy cars that are made to be sold outside the US. Inside the US, we buy cars made to be sold in the US.
Can you find that article about cupholder man-years?
I'll check again, it wasn't in English though. It was a few years back, about a German engineer who supposedly had to devote more than a year just to the cupholder. It could have been 31,557,600 engineers who were assigned to the task for one second each, one of those two extrema.
Upvoted for using 365.25 rather than 365. (Though of course a working year is not a full year of 24-hour days, and the real figure should be 365.2425 or something.)
Yay Yahoo Answers wins again.