American automakers have long led in one key area of automotive design: cupholders. Whether it’s a Lunar New Year Limited Edition Stanley Cup full of whiskey sweet tea or a small Dunkin Iced Coffee, Americans want to enjoy various liquids of varying sizes at variable temperatures nonstop all day. It pains me to say this, but I think the Europeans are catching up as I’ve just driven a vehicle with what I think is the highest per-capita cupholder population of any car I’ve ever seen — and, no, it’s not the Subaru Ascent.
When thinking about cupholders it’s important to think about both the total number of cupholders and, of course, the number of cupholders per capita. Classification is also important. Do we consider a bottle holder in a door a cupholder?
I ask this because it’s universally agreed that the Subaru Ascent has the most cupholders for a normal passenger vehicle, with 19 different places to store beverages. Here’s what that looks like:
Subaru is employing a little bit of a cheat here, though you could also argue it’s an innovation. I’m going to go with innovation.
The little dividers in the door pocket do, indeed, add a lot of cupholders to the total number the Ascent has. If you were to only have one of those in each door pocket, as is normal in most cars, the number would drop to a more reasonable (but still high) 12 cupholders.
Subaru is also taking advantage of third-row storage space to put in five more slots for beverages, which is pretty common. We had a bit of a debate internally about whether or not a door pocket counts, but so long as the space keeps a drink upright it counts as a “cupholder” because you could put a cup inside of it with the contents spilling.
If the door pocket storage is at an angle it’s a “beverage holder” and not a cupholder.
Granting Subaru a total of 19 cupholders, the seven-passenger Ascent has a whopping 2.7 beverage holders per passenger. I drove something that blows this out of the water.
Meet The New King
I borrowed an electric 2024 Mercedes eSprinter cargo van for the weekend to help move stuff for a church picnic and what I discovered was that this vehicle has, by far, the most cupholders per passenger. It also, arguably, has the most cupholders of any two-seat vehicle.
A fuller review is coming later because I think the eSprinter is an exceptional vehicle, but I couldn’t skip talking about how wild it is that this thing has so many places to store liquids.
The first important point is that this is a two-seat cargo van with a divider separating the passenger cabin from the storage area. It is designed for a maximum of TWO passengers.
And, yet, there are many, many places to put beverages.
At first, I didn’t even notice half of them. The most prominent ones are the ones located below the simple infotainment screen, which you can see in this graphic from Mercedes:
These are sensible and can store a 12 oz soda can in the center of the two depressions and something much larger in the outside ones. If this was all there was that would be a solid 2.0 beverage holders per passenger.
But while driving it I noticed there were a crazy four more cupholders located above the dash.
That’s two more upright, totally standard cupholders for the driver. And then…
I thought to myself: This is crazy. Eight cupholders for two people is 4.0 cupholders per passenger. That’s late-career Gary Busey-levels of insanity. Was I wrong? They’re a little shallow so maybe they aren’t for cups. I could be a dummy. It’s happened before.
So I went back to the manual. See the #2 in the image above? Here’s how Mercedes describes it:
BOOO YEAH!
I can use this to drink my decaf iced green tea or have a pack of Swisher Sweets. Is there anything this van can’t do?
If you want to be super strict about how you define a “cupholder” that’s all the cupholders the eSprinter has. But are these all the official beverage holders? Absolutely not.
This is slightly angled, so I’m not sure it can count as a “cup” holder, but it’s definitely a beverage holder and can definitely take a water bottle or a 20-oz Gingerbread Snap’d Mountain Dew. Or one of those Arizona Iced Teas I was obsessed with when I was younger.
If you count this, the Mercedes Sprinter has 10 beverage holders for exactly two people, or 5.0 beverage holders per passenger.
Can you beat that? Can anything ever beat that? This is the new king of cupholders until anyone else can prove me wrong.
Mon Dieu! I never considered the dashboard a location for cupholders. This is one of the most important innovations to come out of Europe in the last 30 years!
I was thinking about the rise of the cup holder the other day.
When did they get out of control? Even in “economy” vehicles you have two or three within the driver’s reach. Coffee, beer, deodorizer, what more do you need?
I come from a time where the open glove compartment lid presented a near horizontal surface and had two circular indents, one of which usually had a decal showing tire information. These worked ok for drinks as long as the vehicle was driven with a mind tuned to container stability, no sudden moves.
Back then interior function was measured with ashtrays rather than cup holders and in fancy cars that included a 12 volt accessory outlet populated with a “Cigar” lighter.
Things maybe going full circle though, there are cup type ashtrays available in the aftermarket. I don’t know what they are smoking?
I’m just surprised that these only seat two in the American market. In Europe these, along with the transit and others, all have three seats in the front.
I was wondering about that…
In the US, I think this is called “crew seating” and these models are apparently available because some aftermarket vendors ask if the van is cargo, crew or passenger.
Signed — A proud owner of the most cupholder-dense vehicle in North America.
I was curious about this recently as well but at least for the Transit, for 2024 it is only available with two seats in the front.
There were ‘crew’ van versions of both the Transit and Sprinter, that had a bench seat behind the front two seats, making it a 5-seater. Everything behind that was cargo. The Transit is no longer available in that configuration but the Sprinter is still available as a Crew Van.
https://www.mbvans.com/en/vehicles/build/sprinter/crew-van
*Speaking for US market models
The volume of 3 Europeans is approximately the volume of 2 Americans, so it tracks.
I think this is only true since Brexit.
Family Information Service | Britain: ‘the fat man of Europe’ (oxfordshire.gov.uk)
Wow, that’s crazy…yeah, they count but my opinion is that any cupholder in the dash is just stupid and unnecessary…blocks your view even though it’s just a little; and is just asking for trouble if it spills and messes up stuff in dash, gets into all the crevices and is hard to clean, or flies everywhere and distracts you while driving
Imagine a spilled drink running into the innards of that complex dashboard…
I guess far worse than the M&Ms going into the dashboard in Tommy Boy.
That was so hilarious…and the whole movie, of course
“Fat guy in a little coat”
It’s dumber than that. Let’s put a cupholder just below the windshield! Where it gets really hot! But not make the cupholder wide enough to fit an insulated mug. Just big enough for a can of {favorite road beverage}!
Madness. We use our dash cupholders as temporary storage for pretty small rocks and things we want to sterilize.
Not that I condone drinking and driving but I just have visions of some imbecile putting a beer there then getting pulled over because of that.
and how is that a problem?
The top cupholders can be used for:
* Slim Jim and other meat products
* Pens and pencils for the job site, having customers sign stuff, etc
* Coins for parking meters
* Swizzlers
* Cigarettes and lighters
as someone who only drinks water in their cars this seems absolutely absurd to me…
hell, one of my vehicles has *zero* cup holders – the horror!
No cupholders car here too. I don’t drink in my car either.
Perhaps ya’ll live in humid climes and only take short trips. Four or five dry hours driving across Colorado or Arizona or SoCal without drinking anything would leave you physically and mentally impaired. Out here in the arid lands, (nonalcoholic) drinking and driving go together. It’s not a matter of etiquette, but survival.
i live in tucson, arizona; a 2 liter stainless steel water bottle sits shotgun, or behind the seat if i have a passenger – oe cup holders can’t accommodate large bottles, so they are useless to me for a number of reasons
ah, a man of culture
All vehicles have at least one cup holder. In your crotch, old style, the way god intended. Even works on motorcycles.
I can fit at least 8 hostages in the back of that van!
Or even 10- 14 equivalent Danny Devitos!
Can any of them fit the 512 oz child size from Paunch Burger? I need at least two of those.
Now I just feel like this is sarcastic trolling from our German overlords at Mercedes.
“So, you like soda? Fünf cupholders for zwei personen! Drink that, schweinhunde!”
I think you misunderstand German engineers.
You see, this is a work vehicle, which is likely to be carrying laborers working outside. So during the design stages, an engineer was appointed to liasion with the legal department to request research into the official guidance and policies (if any) in the vehicle’s target market, in this case, the US, regarding water consumption while working in heat. They discovered that OSHA recommends 8oz of water per 20mins of work in heat, and had previous buyer surveys indicating that 6-8 hours was the median amount of time spent on a worksite. From there the engineer calculates that 7hrs x 3 x(8oz / 33.814 = 23.6588ml) = 496.8348ml = 4.968L, therefore the vehicle needs to hold 5 standard 1-liter water bottles per occupant.
This is then double-checked by a second engineer and validated against statistical data on worker behavior and health.
Meanwhile, someone accidentally specifies a power steering fluid reservoir that needs someone with two elbows to fill and nobody notices.
The response and username is in perfect synchronicity and I love it. I think this is absolutely plausible.
Ironically it’s just a username I’ve been using since 1998. I just have known Germans, have known engineers, and have owned Volkswagens…
Ironically all changes to ways of working (as a result of the implementation of new software, for example) in Germany must be validated by the work council. If they don’t approve it you cannot implement it.
So this might be closer to reality than you think…
Most people have two elbows.
Yes, but not on the same arm.
The picture of the ascent has 20 cup holder indicating dots.
C&P error. Fixed! Thank you for pointing it out.
With that many cupholders, half of those must be pee cup holders.
Like the designers have Amazon drivers in mind.
I was on a road trip, sneezing because of sinus issues, and thought “Why doesn’t someone make a cylinder-style tissue cannister for cars? There are so many cupholders, it would be great to have tissue at the ready.”
Then I saw them at Target.
I grant you COTD for “Swisher Sweets”. Kudos for giving me giggles for the rest of the day.
You can take the boy out of Houston…
If you configure this as a passenger van for your very large family, and you are a control freak, this allows you to decide who gets a drink and when.
Oh, who am I kidding, in passenger configuration, there would be at least one additional cupholder for every seat.
Some of those are french fry holders.
Good to know we have our recordholder…for now.
This is what happens when you feed the engineers after midnight.
why on earth would you put a drink on top of the dash – the hottest spot in the car. Plus it can obstruct your view. I guess it would be good to keep your coffee or tea at boiling temp.
Not everyone lives in hot places. Those would be fine for me a solid half of the year or so.
It’s to keep your coffee warm!
Sorry, but this take is incorrect. A “cup holder” can not be in any location where the holder would move relative to the rest of the vehicle while a beverage is in place (thus excluding stowable holders).
The idea, of course, is that the aforementioned fluid-containment-device storage feature could result in said fluid spilling through an opening that can not be completely sealed, such as the hole for a straw.
I am an European, have never used a cup holder in my car and hardly see the use for them in any car.
A door pocket to store a water bottle horizontally is enough.
We need to start quantifying not only the number of beverage containers but the volume those containers can handle. Those door pockets can probably handle a 1-liter Nalgene bottle. Some trucks have cupholders that can handle a 42-oz Big Gulp®™©. If your car has a lot of cupholders, but they only accommodate those skinny Euro 250-ml soda cans, you could die of dehydration before getting off the dealer’s lot.
I remember many years ago the SAE Magazine did a profile of the Hyundai design studios, in one of the cupboards they have all the different sizes of drink containers available to the US market.
Maybe the metric should be total gallons or something to keep OEM’s from cheating with two dozen thimble size spaces just to win the cupholder wars
I am partial to the hogshead as a unit of liquid volume.
i like metric system (SI):
10 drops in a sploot
10 sploots in a dram
10 drams in a glom
10 gloms in a shitload
10 shitloads in a shit-ton.
That made me lol and I’m not sure why.
The real trick here is finding the “fluid-containment-storage-device” that PEFECTLY fits the orifice – snug-as-a-bug, and all that. Took me a while, but the YETI 18oz fits my Amarok like it was made to – which I find immensely strange, as the Amarok is metric…
25 years ago, the Germans hated cupholders and thought stupid Americans should pay attention to driving and not drinking. Times have changed.
Most of the time we had to use all feet and hands to drive the car as well, so there was no time to drink either.
That has changed too.
A lot of BMW E39 owners replace the laughably tiny and flimsy original cupholders with a larger, molded unit that fits in essentially the same place, but I just replace mine with new OEM ones every few years to honor my judgmental German ancestors.
Hilariously, BMW even got stingier with cupholders the longer the E39 was available. Some early cars had a pair on the back of the center console for rear passengers, but those got scrapped and replaced with a tiny, useless bin. So, my ’03 has two 12-oz. can sized cupholders for a five-passenger vehicle. It has a higher ashtray-to-passenger ratio.
I had an e39. The other trouble with the cup holders were they occasionally impeded with shifting and blocked almost all of the HVAC controls.
My e36 has slightly better cup holders than the e39, but they also get in the way of you want to put your arm in the middle of the car while shifting.
I have only one takeaway from this article. Nostalgia. Ginger Snapd was my absolute favorite Christmas Dew. I was really hoping they did it a second year in a row, but alas, so such luck.
I don’t drink caffeine and so just reached for something funny, was it really that good?
I sure thought so. Most people seemed to dislike it though and thought I was bizarre for not just liking it but loving it. I don’t do coffee, tea, or alcohol, so various Dew flavors are my poisons of choice.
Are the 4 cup holders below the infotainment meant reference the headlights of the w210 E-class?
Now I can’t unsee it.
Matt is right. What has now been seen cannot be unseen. Nice callout!
And then there is my Volvo that has 2 right behind the shifter so if the cup is more that 10cm tall I whack it while shifting-
My Mustang is like that too. Too tall a cup? It’ll get bumped. Plus the two aren’t at the same depth so I have to be strategic if I happen to have two drinks. Mostly the water bottle goes on the seat at that point and the spillable drink in the holder.
German boardroom:
“Hans, zhis will never work. Zee Americans are obsessed with cupholders.”
“But Fritz, I don’t understand, why would you want to have a beverage zwhen you are driving?”
“Zhey want cupholders. We will give them cupholders” … narrow the camera angle … “All zee cupholders”
All I have to say is I hate door pocket cupholders. Yeah, I get it, they’re for bottles. But for whatever reason, the bottle I’m attempting to jam in there rarely ever fits.
Oddly enough the Voyager I have doesn’t have a ton of real cupholders. Two real in the front, two real in the second row off the back of the center console, and two in the third row, oddly on the passenger side with zero on the driver’s side. Six real cupholders for seven seats in a van? Oddly lacking.