Passenger room, cargo and bed capacity, and the judged comfort of the seats and ride. Which criteria apply to which body types, how the fleet is distributed, and a calibration problem this subject used to have.
By MotorGPAPublished September 5, 20268 min readFigures read live from the scoring data at build time
The Comfort grade rolls up the framework’s Space & Comfort subject, and the name undersells it. Half of the criteria are measured — seating, headroom, legroom, cargo or bed capacity in inches and cubic feet — and half are judged: how the seats feel over an hour, how the ride settles on a broken road, how quiet the cabin is, what the climate system can do. It is the subject where a spec sheet and a road test meet.
What the criteria measure
Passenger space is seating capacity, front headroom and legroom, rear headroom and legroom (omitted on two-seaters), and third-row usability for the body types that can have one. Cargo and storage depends on the body: trunk or cargo volume and maximum cargo volume for cars, SUVs and vans; bed length and bed volume for trucks; and in-cabin storage for everyone. Comfort proper is four judged criteria — seat comfort and ride quality at ×2, cabin quietness and climate features at ×1. Because so many criteria are body-specific, this is the subject where the framework’s applies-to rules do the most work, and where the segment bands matter most: a sedan’s trunk is graded against sedan trunks. Graded within its segment: why a truck's MPG is not a sedan's shows the cargo example.
Id
Criterion
Kind
Weight
Applies to
4.1.1
Seating capacity — Passenger Space
Measured (seats)
×2
All vehicles
4.1.2
Front headroom — Passenger Space
Measured (in)
×1
All vehicles
4.1.3
Front legroom — Passenger Space
Measured (in)
×1
All vehicles
4.1.4
Rear headroom — Passenger Space
Measured (in)
×1
4+ seats
4.1.5
Rear legroom — Passenger Space
Measured (in)
×2
4+ seats
4.1.6
Third-row usability — Passenger Space
Judged
×1
SUVs, minivans, vans only
4.2.1
Cargo/trunk volume — Cargo & Storage
Measured (cu ft)
×2
SUVs, sedans, minivans, hatchbacks, coupes, convertibles, wagons, vans only
The 15 criteria in Space & Comfort, as published in the framework. Weights are relative within the category and renormalize over the criteria a vehicle actually carries. The full definitions, including the scoring guidance for each judged criterion, are on the report card.
How the fleet grades
Comfort medians at 57.1 points, a 1.84 (C-) — below the C+/B− range most of the weighted subjects sit in. Part of that is the same absolute-band property Efficiency and Ownership Cost have: the space bands are drawn to the full real spread of each segment, and a large share of the fleet is in the smaller half of it.
A 5%B 18%C 31%D 28%F 17%
Comfort across the 295 graded models, each at its latest scored year. Median 57.1 points (1.84, C-); the middle half of the fleet sits between 47.9 and 69 points, the extremes at 31.6 and 89.1.
Criterion
Models
Median value
Median score
Seating capacity 4.1.1
295
5 seats
75
Front headroom 4.1.2
295
39.7 in
60
Front legroom 4.1.3
295
41.7 in
38
Rear headroom 4.1.4
286
38.4 in
63
Rear legroom 4.1.5
286
37.6 in
63
Third-row usability 4.1.6
169
—
20
Cargo/trunk volume 4.2.1
273
25 cu ft
26
Max cargo volume 4.2.2
169
65.2 cu ft
22
Bed length 4.2.3
22
64.8 in
24.5
Bed volume 4.2.4
22
48.3 cu ft
36.5
In-cabin storage & clever solutions 4.2.5
295
—
65
Seat comfort 4.3.1
295
—
74
Ride quality 4.3.2
295
—
72
Cabin quietness 4.3.3
295
—
73
Climate & comfort features 4.3.4
295
—
76
Median score on each Space criterion across the models that carry it, latest scored year each. For measured criteria the median raw value is shown too.
Who leads, and why
Body type dominates this subject in the way you would expect: the vehicles built to carry people and things lead, and the vehicles built to go fast trail, because the criteria are space and a settled ride and a sports car has neither by design. Price class matters less than it looks — a luxury badge buys seat comfort and quietness but not rear legroom, and several of the highest Comfort grades on the site belong to mainstream vehicles with large rear seats.
Body type
Models
Median (pts)
Median GPA
Wagons
4
78.2
3.32B+
Minivans
5
69.4
2.70B-
Sedans
55
66.2
2.48C+
Hatchbacks
18
62
2.19C
Vans
4
59
1.98C-
Trucks
22
57.2
1.85C-
Convertibles
7
52.3
1.51D
SUVs
160
51.4
1.45D
Coupes
20
50.9
1.41D
Comfort median by body type, latest scored year per model. Body types with fewer than three graded models are left out.
Current-year vehicles whose Comfort grade most exceeds their overall GPA — the ones this subject flatters.
How to read the grade
Split the grade in two when you read it. The measured half is a statement about size, graded against the segment; a compact SUV with a B in Comfort is spacious for a compact SUV. The judged half is a statement about how it feels, and the reasoning on each criterion names the road tests it rests on. A car that is large but harsh, or small but serene, shows up as a mid grade with a split underneath, and the criterion scores are where the split is.
