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.
72 thoughts on “You’ll Never Guess Which New Car Has A Whopping Four Cupholders Per Person”
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My Transit van has 5 straight cup holders and 4 additional beverage holders,so not as many as the Sprinter,but close.
I drive commercially for work. Cup holders that you can reach without bending or looking for are a must-have feature. Props to the Ford Transit for putting the left hand one right below the vent: Set the heat to hot and keep the coffee warm. It’s
Meanwhile, my current ratio is .28 cupholders per person. Factory its actually .14. Aside from no cupholders, I think 7 people sharing 1 cupholder might be another kind of record.
Commenting for the Van-gorithm to manifest more van articles.
Maybe one day culminating in pressuring Ford to make a hybrid AWD Ford Transit 350 Passenger Wagon with the Generator.