I was at the San Jose Auto Show yesterday, and one thing I looked at in
> all the cars was the cup holder designs, and how they accompany > different size cups.
Wow, 2 or 3 more reports like this and you'll be eligble for a PhD from any number of online life-experience "colleges". :-)
I don't mean to mock. I found your report interesting and I thank you for offering it.
In my Prius's center console there's one molded cupholder that would leak any spill and one fold-out cupholder that would contain any spill. I think all should be the containment variety.
The Prius also has a water-bottle recess molded into each front door pocket. That's handy, but only for the bottle. It would be a bad place for a cup because of the awkward reach.
For the back seat occupants there's a sturdy fold-down arm that is a no-spill unadjustable holder for two cylindrical somethings. As my wife and I never have backseat occupants on long trips, I've installed a tall plastic tumbler as a substitute for the trash holder that for us would have been a better choice as standard equipment.
Three spring loaded fingers: This was a good adjustable type. Three
> solid plastic fingers with springs behind them push against the base of
> the cup. These held the cup pretty securely, and appeared as if they
> wouldn't break easily. No manual adjustment was necessary. It took a
> little bit of a push to seat the cup into the cup holder, and a good
> pull to remove it.
That scares me. I don't want to push down or tug up on a full cup of coffee. As the up-tugging is likely to rely on the rim of the lid, there'd be a good chance of its detaching with an attendant loss of control of the cup. All other things being equal, I'd bypass that vehicle. Of course, few other things are equal.
A 5-passenger Accord coupe I looked at had seven built-in cupholders. I figure for most trips that's coffee for the driver and a six-pack for the passenger. :-)