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. I had along a Contigo Extreme insulated mug for testing ("http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=bxgy_cc_img_b_13160581/602-0242754-9761410?asin=B000FE9OP8"), since any car I buy will have to be able to accompany a mug with this diameter base. My current 4Runner will work with it well, while my wife's older Camry (1996) has cup holders that are too small. Almost all new cars have larger cup holders than previous generations, there were only a few vehicles with tiny cup holders. Different designs Single size: You have to buy a cup that will fit properly and snugly. This may actually be the best design, least likely to ever break, though the single size cup holders are too large for holding a soda can or a smaller bottle of water securely. You could insert a foam insulator for use with smaller diameter containers. Laddered: a small circle at the bottom, so the cup stops when it's at the smallest circle that the base will fit in. This is fairly unstable since you don't get much side support at any of the levels, though you could add some foam to make it more secure. Rubber flaps: A large diameter cup holder with some flimsy rubber flaps that are intended to hold the smaller cups in place. These don't work well as the flaps are too flimsy to do much of anything. Once they fall off, you could add some foam. Swing arm: This type was in a Dodge RAM truck. It was big diameter cup holder with a strong plastic arm that swings over to match the cup diameter. Did not appear flimsy. A simple, straight-forward design, but you need to manually adjust the size. I liked this truck, which was a crew cab that seated six. When was the last time you saw a vehicle that seated three people in the front seat? Plastic flip: This was a spring loaded plastic flap that flips up or down to fit different cup diameters. It was very flimsy, and one of the two was already broken on the 2007 Camry that was on the show floor. The Camry may be a great car, but the engineers clearly missed the class on cup-holder design. 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. This type requires a larger console, since the spring -loaded fingers need to retract into the console. Only issue might be that eventually the springs will fatigue. Three foam fingers: These fingers were vinyl covered foam. The cup compresses these fingers as you slide it in. They worked fine, but they won't last, the vinyl will peel off after moderate use and exposure to the elements. The advantage to the manufacturer is that these fingers don't have to retract so a smaller console can be used. I didn't see any of the super-flimsy slide-out or pop-up cup-holders that tend to break very quickly. The only broken cup-holder I saw was in the 2007 Camry. Research shows that cup-holder design, while not a primary selection factor in a vehicle, often is a secondary and deciding factor in narrowing down the final choice of vehicle.
