Old-School Car Innovations Are Back in Demand

Even though cars are becoming more and more advanced, people really just seem to want their vehicles to have ample and diverse cupholder space - and better proprioception.

Carmakers like BMW and Kia have ditched touch displays in favour of dials and switches that won’t force drivers to look at a screen - which often require the user to navigate (while driving) several sub-categories in order to reach the command they are looking for. No wonder that Europe now only gives its highest automotive safety rating to cars with physical buttons. Porsche and Hyundai are also gradually shifting away from smart screens. The Wall Street Journal notes that our innate love of physical switches is due to “proprioception” - our spatial awareness in 3D spaces. In other words, buttons are simply more intuitive to the human condition. Knobs, switches, sliders, buttons, and click wheels are the new markers of luxury.

Perhaps even more important to the decision making process when buying a new car relates to cup holders, says Wired. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers claimed that “cup holders in a US vehicle were one of the most critical factors in clinching the purchase decision for potential auto buyers”… all the way back in 2007. That’s because cupholders are a primary “touchpoint” - the things drivers interact with every single time they drive, which affect their perception of the vehicle as a whole.

Zooming forward to today, the 2025 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, the most influential report in the auto industry, labeled “cupholder frustration” as a “key finding.” The report notes that “manufacturers are struggling to keep up with being able to accommodate all the different shapes and sizes [of containers] that are increasingly available.” Specifically, customers complain that there aren’t enough holders in a vehicle and the ones that do exist are too small to accommodate the increasingly popular oversized tumblers from brands like YETI or Stanley.

No wonder Subaru’s Ascent SUV boasts a whopping 19 cup and bottle holders - the car has become famous for all those beverage slots.