Interpretation ID: 2355y
Legal Staff
General Motors Corporation
New Center One Building
3031 West Grand Boulevard
P.O. Box 33122
Detroit, MI 48232
Dear Mr. Ball:
This is in response to your letter of January 23, 1990 asking for an interpretation of Standard No. 201, Occupant Protection in Interior Impact (49 CFR 571.201). Specifically, you asked whether the requirements of S3.3 of Standard No. 201, which apply only to "interior compartment doors," are applicable to a portion of a new cupholder design now being developed by GM.
At the outset, I would like to note that section 114 of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (15 U.S.C. 1403) makes a vehicle's manufacturer responsible for certifying that the vehicle complies with all applicable provisions of the Federal motor vehicle safety standards. For this reason, NHTSA has no authority to approve, endorse, or offer assurances of compliance for any vehicle designs or features. NHTSA will, however, tentatively state our opinion of how the safety standards would apply to a vehicle design or feature. It is important that the manufacturer be aware that these tentative statements of agency opinion are based entirely on the information presented to the agency by the manufacturer, and that the agency opinions may change after NHTSA has had an opportunity to examine the vehicle itself or otherwise acquire additional information.
With those caveats, I believe that S3.3 of Standard No. 201 would not apply to your cupholder design, as explained more fully below. In your letter, you stated that General Motors plans to offer a vehicle with a cupholder permanently installed in the console assembly between the driver and right front passenger positions. The cupholder assembly would include a pivot, which would allow the cupholder to recess into the console when it is not needed. When the cupholder is recessed, the bottom face of the cupholder assembly would be flush with the console assembly. I concur with your opinion that the bottom face of the cupholder would not appear to be covered by section 3.3 of Standard No. 201, because that bottom face does not appear to be an "interior compartment door" as that term is defined at 49 CFR 571.3.
The term "interior compartment door" is defined at 49 CFR 571.3 as "any door in the interior of the vehicle installed by the manufacturer as a cover for storage space normally used for personal effects." According to your letter, when the bottom of the cupholder is facing the driver and passenger (which you state is the only configuration in which it could be considered a cover), there is no storage space for personal effects.
The agency has made clear that the term "interior compartment door" does not refer to every door that covers a compartment that could potentially be used as a storage space for personal effects. For example, ash trays and spare tire compartment doors in station wagons are capable of being used as a storage space for some personal effects. However, the preamble to the final rule that added S3.3 to Standard No. 201 expressly stated that S3.3 did not apply to the covers for ash trays and spare tire compartment doors in the Standard. 33 FR 15794 (October 25, 1968). Additionally, the agency has stated in previous interpretations that S3.3 of Standard No. 201 does not apply to doors in the interior of a vehicle that do not cover a storage space for personal effects. Hence, the door to a fuse box in the interior of a vehicle was said not to be subject to S3.3 in a July 3, 1984 letter to Mr. Bruce Henderson, and the outside surface of a fold-down table was said to be not subject to S3.3 in a January 31, 1986 letter to Mr. Russ Bomhoff.
Applying this reasoning to your new cupholder design, we would tentatively conclude that, when the cupholder is retracted, the bottom face of the cupholder is not an interior compartment door subject to S3.3 of Standard No. 201. I do not believe that the compartment that would be covered by the bottom face of the cupholder when it is retracted would be a storage space for personal effects. Even if the compartment were capable of being used as a storage space for personal effects, it would not have been installed by the manufacturer for that purpose. Therefore, the bottom face of the cupholder would not be considered an "interior compartment door" within the meaning of the definition of that term in 49 CFR 571.3, and would not be subject to the requirements of S3.3 of Standard No. 201.
Sincerely,
Stephen P. Wood Acting Chief Counsel
/ref:201#571 d:2/27/90