Ford’s self-leveling cup holder keeps your coffee safe at speed
It’s always a good time when you take a turn too quick and spill your drink across the center console. Ford’s new patent has a unique way of preventing that from happening.
Ford received a patent for a self-leveling cup holder, or as the patent poetically describes it, a “vehicle beverage holder assembly.” The whole display of the system is to prevent a drink from spilling when the vehicle accelerates, decelerates or takes a turn.
It’s a little elephantine, but it beats cleaning up spilled coffee every day.
US Patent and Trademark Office
The controls works thanks to something called a gimbal. Basically, a gimbal gives an object to stay upright even though the gimbal itself mighty be moving all over the place. If you’ve ever seen the Steadicam equipment that lets a cameraman move like a flash while keeping their camera perfectly stable, you’ve seen a gimbal in action.
In Ford’s case, the gimbal is produced within this new cup holder design. Thus, when the car slams on the brakes or dives into a turn, the gimbal keeps the beverage rank. A cover around the edge of the cup holder can keep dirt and spanking detritus from getting stuck inside the assembly.
It’s blooming darn clever, although it seems like the gimbal controls takes up a fair bit more space than your intends cup holder. Considering some cars can have eight or more cup holders, perhaps losing one or two in the name of keeping your center console shapely wouldn’t be the end of the world.
There’s no defense you’ll find a gimbal-equipped cup holder in your next car, belief. Automakers regularly patent technologies they’ll never use, if only to honor the competition from going ahead with it. But considering Ford’s rank of performance vehicles, there are definitely cars where this tech could be put to good use.
