I don't think the decline of minivans is because of "uncoolness"; I blame the US auto industry that doesn't want to sell anything but SUVs.
Our family was shopping last year for a new minivan to replace our aging Odyssey--our kids are bigger now, but we still go on trips together. We looked for Siennas and Odysseys, but nobody had a good selection in stock, and the newer models felt more cramped with worse visibility than the old ones. I felt that we were not being given the choices we wanted and were being herded toward SUVs.
There are also basically no wagons anymore. Apparently everything has to be a high-off-the-ground poor-visibility pedestrian murder machine to be profitable for the auto industry anymore.
Fuel economy standards should be fixed so that vehicles with truck chassis are treated the same as cars, tax loopholes advantaging truck chassis should be closed, there should be much stricter legal requirements for driver view of nearby low objects, possibly urban areas should have special 10 mph lower speed limits for SUV-sized vehicles, and there should be much higher financial liability for pedestrian/cyclist injuries, possibly piercing through directly to manufacturers.
Otherwise, car design has been a race to the bottom.
> There are also basically no wagons anymore. Apparently everything has to be a high-off-the-ground poor-visibility pedestrian murder machine to be profitable for the auto industry anymore.
Honestly this just indicates that you haven't seriously driven a modern CUV. What you describe sounds like a 1990 suburban.
CUVs wouldn't be so popular without being safe and easy to drive.
Sure, I'm opposed to daily driving trucks and truck frame SUVs. But thats an important distinction. The popular cars in the US today are CUVs which are built on a car chassis and generally speaking have good visibility and safety features. They are essentially scaled up wagons with awd.
>CUVs wouldn't be so popular without being safe and easy to drive.
They wouldn't be so popular if every other car on the road didn't tower over conventional sedans. Why would you want a car that rides worse, is heavier, and costs more to buy and live with? People don't want vehicles that feel sunken into the ground and increasingly that's how sedans are perceived. It's a runaway effect.
Worse than what? And why are sedans conventional? The Sedan is a terrible legacy design shape. The divided trunk and rear seats wastes a ton of space.
A wagon or sportback I can understand. And thats essentially what a small CUV is based on, along with a bit more ride height and often awd drivetrain.
The CUV is popular because it's a really functional and practical design. You don't have to spend a lot on one, but you can. Maybe test drive some more and it'll click why so many people drive them. They don't all handle poorly either, some are downright fun.
The sedan, designed well, is the ideal shape that you want to cleanly cut through the air with the least amount of wind resistance. As you go up in size the area that a car covers increases, as does weight, among other things. So you lose the efficiency of the body shape. And the higher off the ground you go, the more drag you get because now air deflects underneath the car and will 'catch' in different spots. That's why you take like a prius with front air deflectors, they design it that way to create a bit of a ground effect reducing drag.
The "CUV", compact SUV, is popular because it's higher off the ground. Because as other cars have gotten larger, people feel less safe with traditional sedans. Sedans, which worked well before because really people don't carry a lot with their cars most of the time. They've taken the hatchback design, since with rollover it's difficult to make those high in cargo capacity, and blown it up and thrown AWD on it. Take makes the car more expensive, it's more metal and plastic.
Doing that spoils the handling because now you've taken a chassis where the wheels would be parallel and lifted it. Making it so the body rolls more, providing a stiffer chassis feel, compounded by the additional weight for now larger components like the rear hatch. And you get a worse riding vehicle. I mean if the scope of the vehicles you've driven is just SUVs, then yeah, they might seem very sporty. But most of that is just marketing. That's why manufacturers don't really make sports cars into SUVs, because there's a lot of compromises in doing that.
On the contrary, having driven plenty of cars with and without AWD, adding AWD is a massive boon to handling for me, even outside of "rough" conditions like mud/ice/snow/gravel.
The issue is the height, weight, etc, not really the AWD.
Especially since most vehicles’ AWD systems (especially if you’re talking crossovers) are really just “2WD but we can briefly engage the other two wheels if you’re trying to get moving on a patch of ice”. (One axle is not being driven except when the other is slipping, and in many cases there are speed limits above which this won’t engage. Many of these systems rely on clutch packs that, if they were engaged continuously, would overheat.)
The easiest way I can describe the difference is to go test drive a Tesla model 3 and a model Y. Same basic car. If you go down the road and yank the steering wheel a bit because of the weight of the things you'll find the model Y gets significantly more front heavy in a turn compared to the model 3.
I've driven these a few times as rentals; I don't know if that counts as "serious". They are more expensive, they handle worse, they are heavier, they are less stable because they are significantly higher off the ground, they have poorer visibility as a driver especially of nearby low objects, all else equal they get worse gas mileage, and are basically the same size inside so that the seating and cargo is not appreciably different compared to a wagon.
In my opinion and for my use cases they are worse in every way except for profit for the manufacturer.
There's nothing wrong with daily driving a truck frame SUV like a Toyota 4Runner. Those are very practical vehicles for anyone who occasionally needs to drive on rough dirt roads or tow a small trailer (and that's a lot of people).
> Those are very practical vehicles for anyone who occasionally needs to drive on rough dirt roads or tow a small trailer (and that's a lot of people).
Most people don’t need this beyond what most modern vehicles can already do.
I’ve got what is termed a “compact sport sedan”.
I live in rural Canada. I can guarantee that car has seen more gravel, mud and barely roads that most cars will see in their lifetime, trucks included. Never mind the snow and ice. The experience is in no way challenging or compromised.
I regularly use it to tow a 5’x10’ trailer. Most I’ve pulled is just shy of 3,000lbs. Only compromise there I’ve found is pulling it up the 8% grade headed toward my house I had to take it down from 6th to 5th gear to maintain 70mph.
This is _way_ more than most people demand of their vehicles.
A truck is practical for the average person in much the same way that using a kinetic orbital strike to drive a nail is a practical as a replacement for a hammer.
That’s the equivalent of wearing rubber boots or cleats everyday to the office. My next vehicle will be a Cat 797 just in case i need to haul 400 tons.
Well, there is because it's wasteful. Wasteful of material, and finite resources that we in the US subsidize to keep fuel prices from being adjusted to what they would be relative to the rest of the world. Further roads now in modern society are better than they ever have been, especially compared to the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Tires are better. You mean to tell me these days we need more capable vehicles compared to the land yachts and economy cars we drove back in the day? Can't forget a Buick park avenue V6 can be used to tow, and other folks in the world use things like priuses to tow trailers. And frankly I've gone down rough dirt roads in old civics before.
So yeah. Needless to say the practically argument is lackluster relative to the actual capabilities of most vehicles. I think folks are just overestimating their use cases which will cost us in the long run because you've financed yourself to death through the cost of ownership.
Alright, well as someone who routinely puts both the cargo-hauling capabilities and 4WD of his Tacoma to full use, y'all can pry my truck out of my cold dead fingers. Just because you can get away with not needing a truck doesn't mean I can.
Oh please. Everything is "wasteful" to some extent. Unless you're living in a mud hut with no climate control and walking everywhere then your virtue signaling is pure hypocrisy.
If the concern is fuel usage then let's raise the fuel tax. Moralizing and telling other people that they like the wrong things isn't going to accomplish anything.
>Fuel economy standards should be fixed so that vehicles with truck chassis are treated the same as cars
Subjecting big trucks to the same standards as small cars either makes the fuel standards pointless (as they cater to trucks), or outlaws trucks entirely, which is political suicide. People already pay extra for big trucks, which suggests it's something they intrinsically like, and will oppose efforts to ban them.
You're not wrong about how (either directly or indirectly) outlawing trucks would be political suicide, but man, that's a grim thing to think about. The fate of the world hangs in the balance of people whose top concerns include being able to drive monstrously huge cars.
However terrible single party dictatorships like China is, at least they can build high-speed rail (right over your property they've forced you to relinquish) or force cities to electrify without needing to consider the moaning voters who are resistant to change.
To add to that, in Europe I've seen a lot more folks now preferring SUVs because in an accident, many buyers approach it with an "it's better to be alive in your SUV, even if it was responsible for killing the small car passengers" mentality.
I think the problem is that everyone assumes an accident would be the other vehicle's fault, so they're buying protection against someone else hitting them. In that mindset's hypothetical, the small car is acceptable damage because the small car caused the accident. Again in that mindset, why would you volunteer to die in an accident you didn't cause?
I'm not really sure what you can do to fix it, and anything you could do would be political suicide. I'd like to think if i were in charge, I'd have them banned for urban use by the end of the week, but I'd also be out of office by next Monday.
> Again in that mindset, why would you volunteer to die in an accident you didn't cause?
Because I would rather die than kill. I honestly can't understand how anybody would prefer the opposite. How do you live with yourself knowing that you have killed somebody?
Firstly there's a lot of people out there, often in inexplicably clean pickup trucks, who have 4-letter words for that.
Secondly, this mindset is also considering at in a collision with a larger vehicle, like a truck, the SUV means possible survival, small car means certain death, and the trucker walks away anyway (no, that's not a guarantee but it's heavily implied by the "big is safe" message). The fate of a hypothetical small car is only a subset of possibilities, and also can be mostly discounted because:
Thirdly, if you are driving an urban tank in order to defend against the bad drivers (you being, naturally, a very good driver), anyone who dies in a crash with you killed themselves. It's your job to defend you and yours (going by SUV adverts, they're very photogenic and adoring) from that brutal recklessness.
I don't think it's complicated psychology, even if I think it's extremely misguided.
Not least, the tank is disproportionately a danger to your own kids, has shit visibility and is probably not as safe in a collision as it might feel, leading to a false sense of invulnerability and confidence to push into dangerous situations.
If by "fate of the world" you mean the effects of CO2, passenger vehicles are approximately 10% of CO2 emissions [1]. So I don't think that excessively large cars are going to be the determining factor in the fate of the world, and you can cut those guys a little slack.
At minimum the height of the grill of the trucks masquerading as cars needs to be limited. It's not a big deal except for the less brutal looks and actually meaningful change which won't be political suicide.
They could change the rules that effectively penalize smaller vehicles. They can still have categories but be equally stringent within each category.
The reality is that manufacturers have captured the EPA regulations and are using them to steer the market in the direction they want, and in doing so actually making the environment (to say nothing of road safety) worse.
Manufacturers want more profit per-car. They also want to push the market into categories that have higher tariffs on imports. They don't want to be in the market of compact cars or sedans or even, increasingly, large but lightweight vehicles like minivans so they steer the market and regulations away from these vehicle classes.
Every time I see posts like this, I just know the poster has no concept of daily life in the interior of America.
Trucks suck in urban environments, but then CAFE standards destroyed the small truck.
Not very well, though (and I don't think BMW sells wagons in the US anymore). They are positioned as "cool & snobby", rather than "useful".
Peak wagon was the P3 Volvo V70/XC70, built on the Ford EUCD platform [1], which had amazing utility via tie-down rails, 40/20/40 fold-flat middle seats, and a front passenger seat that folded flat to create a uniform load floor for carrying 10 foot long boards. They were better at being useful than the Subaru Outback and yet had higher quality leather and carpets. And don't forget the vertical rear hatch, giving more interior space with a larger window (and larger rear wiper!) that gave them excellent rearward visibility.
The Grand Caravan (not the Pacifica) is an extremely sorted-out vehicle. I bought a 2019 which was supposed to be the last model year, but they had enough demand to continue manufacturing them in 2020. Ultimately it was uneconomical to bring them into compliance with current regs so that was the end of the line for them.
It has exciting features such as physical buttons on the dash, remote start on the fob, a touchscreen only for the Garmin navigation system (no subscription needed) and seats that fold flat into the floor. The 3.6L Pentastar engine is a workhorse and it tows like crazy. Traction control and ABS perform as expected. City MPG is lackluster but on the highway it does very well.
Old boring uncool platforms that no engineer or middle managing bean counter with career ambitions wants anything to do with are always the most sorted because they're generally free of self interested parties trying to screw with them to the detriment of the overall result.
I miss my T&C, the stow-and-go seating was probably the best feature I've ever owned in a car.
I do not miss the 3.6L Pentastar. I thought the rocker arm ticking would eventually kill the engine but the electrical system took care of that way ahead of time. (Buy a refurbished TIPM while they're still available). I see people around me proudly driving their tricked out Grand Cherokees and all I can think is "you got screwed".
Part of the issue is that Minivans are really expensive, and parents with lots of kids tend to not have as much money as childless adults.
for Cars and SUVs:
- A Chevy Equinox starts at $28k MSRP.
- A Toyota RAV4 starts at $29k MSRP.
- A Toyota Prius (PHEV) starts at $33k MSRP.
but for minivans:
- A Honda Odyssey (gas only) starts at $42k MSRP.
- A Chrysler Pacifica (PHEV) starts at $51k MSRP.
Minivans are actually really popular for families in the midwest, for folks who can afford it. If you can't, the option becomes "Get a Minivan, or get an SUV and save $15,000 USD", which obviously skews a lot of families towards the SUV.
So shoving two or three kids in the back of a cheap SUV is pretty normal, event though it's less convenient in a lot of other ways.
If you have more than 2 kids the minivan is the clear winner. A two row SUV can't hold 3 car seats, and even a 3 row SUV will have trouble, plus strapping kids in is way harder.
Actually SUVs often have more width interior side-to-side in bench setups, making it possible to put in 3 child car seats side-by-side (child seats are often very wide, full width of seat and wider than topical adult hip width). Minivans have less, especially in back row where wheel wells are more more likely to be involved since the minivan doesn’t sit as high as an SUV.
I generally don't disagree about SUVs, but minivans adhere to the same regulatory scheme: they get their truck status by GVWR>6k lbs., as opposed to by high clearance and steep angles.
I think your issue comes from fuel consumption standards (smaller greenhouse takes less AC) and the unstoppable proliferation of curtain airbags, which won't stop until A, B and C pillars of all vehicles are supplanted by The Pillar, with no windows or ability to see beside one's vehicle, save by cameras.
We're renting a car in France soon for 4 adults and luggage - I assumed the venerable Espace would be the move, but the hire websites didn't offer them
Looking at the wiki page, it now seems to have turned into an SUV...
> I blame the US auto industry that doesn't want to sell anything but SUVs.
We all voted for the people who voted for... <repeat for several dozen layers> ...wrote the rules that incentivized the current dumb status quo into existence.
The US auto industry is basically a case study in layers of unintended consequences.
Last year auto companies were still recovering from the pandemic and supplies were limited. If everyone wanted to buy a minivan the auto makers would make more minivans. They like money.
I actually think it really is because it is uncool. A whole generation of kids growing up spent too much time in the back of a minivan and now refuse to ever subject someone else to that. Minivans of the 90s were pretty bad (most vehicles in the 90s were). Your mom drove a minivan. Your mom's minivan smelled bad, the air didn't work well, it rode poorly making you sick. The minivans of the 90s were incredibly practical and incredibly bad at the same time.
There are only so many manufacturers of a given vehicle segment. If they all soft collude to stick with higher margin vehicles there's not much consumers can do about it. Car manufacturing isn't a liquid market where new entrants can quickly jump in and undercut the incumbents.
If minivans were popular, manufacturers would make and sell them. They're not colluding: if the minivans were really that popular, just one manufacturer would have to ignore them and build lots of minivans and take over the market.
The simple fact is that they just aren't very popular, and consumers (at least the ones who buy brand-new) really want SUVs and pretty much nothing else. Stop whining about the manufacturers, and look at your idiot neighbors who are all choosing these monstrosities. (Also look at your crappy government, that your neighbors elected, that gives highly preferential treatment to SUVs with their "regulation".) The manufacturers are just giving people what they want; anything else would be leaving money on the table and losing to their competition.
Low inventory doesn't tell us much. If there are three on the lot and the manufacturer sent them last year, sales are slow. If there are three on the lot and twenty were dropped off today, sales are pretty brisk.
As a van person (grew up with an 1987 Aerostar, ordered a 2017 Pacifica in 2016 (sold to Carvana this year when I got engine trouble), bought an 1981 Vanagon recently that might move on its own power soon), the problem is Stow and Go is clearly awesome, but owning a Chrysler isn't. Having a hybrid would be nice for fuel efficiency, but Chrysler removes features in their hybrid (no power rear seats, no Stow and Go), Toyota doesn't even let you take the middle seats out in the Hybrid Sienna. Minivans that aren't flexible aren't really worth it IMHO. If Honda figured out how to fold the middle seats into the floor, I'd buy an Odyssey in minutes.
All the commercial small vans pulled out of the market too; I wanted to get a Ford Transit Connect, but they left, and the used market for them is weird: mostly 100k+ miles. Nissan NV left, Ram Promaster City; neither offered a passenger model. I think I left something out. Mercedes Metris is still in, I think, but it's very basic. I'd like something more on the basic end, but still with fold into the floor rear seats at least.
It’s out as of last year. What’s on the lot is all there is.
That said, if you are ok with basic it’s a really hard vehicle to beat. It’ll tow 5000, has a legitimately flat load floor, and can carry 2,200lbs if you take out the seats (without hitting GVWR). Fuel mileage is pretty good (20ish in town, 28ish on the highway).
Haven’t seen this mentioned yet but “light trucks” are a classification that has more favorable regulations for automakers. SUVs and pickups qualify.
I’m not an expert on this but minivans as passenger vehicles could be less desirable for the automaker as they have more stringent safety and emission regulations that cut into their margins in those vehicles
Yeah I saw a thing a little bit ago where "Odyssey" was one of the most popular vehicles for people when they originally start a search for a new car, but then by the time they get to a purchase they end up with an SUV.
Modern SUVs and Minivans are converging on something that's not really as good as either. A minivan was a box on four wheels maximizing internal space. An SUV sacrificed that for better towing, maybe offroading. Nowadays they're making minivans with no internal space and SUVs that can't tow or offroad.
Full-size MPVs (what we call a minivan) died out in the UK a long time ago, so long that when I needed one I had to import one from Japan (a Toyota Vellfire). Apart from the fuel consumption, I absolutely love it. I get jealous when I visit the states and see the size of the MPVs you have over there though.
They seem to be making a small comeback in the UK recently though, with the Lexus LM (which is basically the same as my Vellfire) and Maxus Mifa 9, a Chinese EV, both being released here.
My minivan is proof of virility and demonstrates that I am not compensating for anything. It also moves a hell of a lot of lumber when the seats are folded down.
Try that in some bubble shaped car-based SUV or a short-bed pickup.
In the sci-fi series The Expanse, there's a Bezos-style rich tycoon character who flaunts his wealth by purposefully not getting hair treatments and instead allows his male pattern baldness to be on display. He's so rich he can afford to not care what anyone thinks, and he wants everyone to know it.
The comment is referring back to "not compensating for anything". Choosing to keep a balding head and not caring what other people think is a power move when having a full head of hair becomes trivial.
Drawing a moral equivalency to some random event in some random contemporary work of fiction as a means of moralizing isn't some kind of awesome megadunk “own” or anything—it's actually pretty lame.
> My minivan is proof of virility and demonstrates that I am not compensating for anything.
Why do people constantly equate what car someone drives with the size of their reproductive organs? I usually only see this from people who reflexively look down on people who own more expensive vehicles than them.
It's weird.
Live your life. Who cares what you or anyone else chooses to drive. I promise you, whatever vehicle you drive, nobody sane actually cares.
If you are driving these things around urban streets where my kids and I are walking or riding bikes, I certainly care what you drive. I'd prefer that it (a) has clear visibility for the driver in all directions, so you can see us, (b) is lower, lighter weight, and traveling slower so you have less chance of killing us, (c) is quieter, and (d) pumps out less air pollution because I don't want to be smelling your exhaust.
If you drive an oversized SUV which you have further lifted off the ground, removed the muffler from, and make exhaust that gives everyone a headache, people are going to assume you are a creepy asshole with no self respect or respect for your neighbors. The vehicle becomes a kind of enraged roar of emotional insecurity, from the "everyone else needs to always be thinking and talking about me, and it doesn't matter why" school of human interaction.
My daily driver is a 2300 pound miata with a stock exhaust. It's small and low to the ground and only has 181 HP. I think this is the lightest production car you can get--certainly close.
I see people in Cybertrucks and some other electric trucks--they don't have local pollution, but between the weight and the height, I'm living pretty dangerously. You always notice the big cars in the miata, but the big, heavy electrics is when I started feeling about as protected as a cyclist in it.
Still, I don't think they're creepy assholes who want to murder me or have emotional issues or whatever. I think they just like their big dumb truck, just like I like my ridiculous small car. I don't have to drive this car, it's impractical, it's dangerous, if someone kills me that'll probably ruin their day, but I do it because I like it. I'm not psychologically deranged with a death wish. Sometimes people just like different things.
> If you drive an oversized SUV which you have further lifted off the ground, removed the muffler from, and make exhaust that gives me a headache, everyone is going to assume you are a creepy asshole with no self respect or respect for your neighbors.
Or maybe it's just you being weird with your city-dweller assumptions?
no this happens both in and out of cities. Just moved out of the American south where something called "rolling coal" is common practice in suburbs, cities, rural areas- a term heard fairly often. A bizarre amount of pickup owners modify diesel engines to produce thick, black smoke as a means of showing off or as a nuisance to others. I know I had a lot of lifted trucks cut me off and roll coal
Hear me out, but childhood trauma and neglect is common in rural areas. This was especially the case 30-40 years ago when family violence prevention programs were just lip service and practically non-existent.
I assume those children grew up to become maladapted adults with Cluster B traits. This manifests as antisocial nuisance behaviours such as rolling coal.
Oh, I assure you they're a problem outside of the city as well. The whole shtick of preener trucks is performative masculinity, because otherwise you'd optimize for a vehicle that actually does things rather than one that just makes a bunch of noise/smoke for fun while not even moving that well. And so "late to the meeting of the small penis club" is just a good mental label to have some pity and not end up taking this contemporary dirtbag trend too seriously.
It's not "weird" to not want gratuitous nuisance, health problems, or slaughtered children. Indeed, indifference to these seems extremely weird (sociopathic), and I would appreciate it if such people stay far from civilization out in the desert or whatever.
(Though they should also be paying their fair share for the environmental costs of the CO2 emissions they pump out which are putting us on a path toward literal un-livability of the Earth, to which end gasoline should probably cost like $15/gallon.)
Can you explain why you'd characterize it as hyperbole? Larger vehicles are demonstrably more dangerous[1], especially to children, and do put out more CO2 emissions. In what other context is it socially acceptable for people to put externalities like those brought by SUVs onto those around them? The one I can mostly think of is secondhand smoke, which at least in my part of the world is pretty heavily looked down on.
[1]
> compact SUVs, full-size SUVs, and pickup trucks all result in a significantly higher probability of pedestrian death when compared to a similar collision involving a car. Compact SUVs increase the probability of death by 63%, pickups increase the probability by 68%, and full-size SUVs increase the probability by 99%
You load big furniture on the roof of or haul building materials in or tow something with a car and the same demographics that said you didn't need a truck to do those things gawk at you with judgement like they're watching a homeless man prepare to cook a pigeon he just nabbed.
It is often difficult to pickup sarcasm in text. I did not interpret OP's comment as sarcasm - probably because I've run into that sentiment quite often.
Eventually, though, the minivan became so indelibly associated with suburbia that even soccer moms shunned it. Soon image-conscious parents were going to soccer games in vehicles designed to ford Yukon streams and invade Middle Eastern countries.
Forgetting that the Yukon is a GMC model, I was trying to figure out what words were missing between "designed" and "Ford Yukon", and then, as my mind was on the cusp of finishing grokking the actual meaning of the sentence, what an "Invade (make) Middle Eastern (model)" would look like.
As someone who bought a Honda Odyssey a few months ago, I don't believe this article.
I wanted to save money and buy a used minivan. However, in my area, used minivans (in decent condition) cost nearly the same as brand-new ones, so I got a new one.
Nearly every house in my neighborhood has a minivan parked out front.
They are such useful vehicles.
I can't throw my kids in the back of a truck. And if I'm hauling non-human objects, I usually want to cover and protect it from weather and theft, a minivan does that! A truck... not so much.
We bought a minivan (Sienna) but it barely fit in our garage (had to fold in the mirrors). Ended up returning it for a 3 row SUV. But it made us notice and wonder: do we see so many minivans parked out front because they don’t fit in the garage?
Uncoolness is a bigger factor than people give credit to. I remember when I was about ten years old my parents having a conversation with the new neighbors about cars which bled into how they'd "never ever own a Station Wagon." I remember the conversation because the neighbors had not fully moved in and the following day pulled up in their 80s (was it a Caprice Classic) Station Wagon complete with that weird wood door stripe (later making an appearance on minivans!) It even had a Barry Manilow bumper sticker on it!
My folks didn't do the Minivan, either, but it was just the 4 of us. Growing up, everyone I knew spoke about minivans like the Station Wagon. Ironically, all buying up things that are generally classified as Station Wagons, look exactly like station wagons but are now marketed as "crossovers." I doubt that would have worked in 1989, but style is fickle.
All of my data is anecdotal, but everyone I know that "chose to get a car that a Minivan would have served better" did so because "they hated minivans." Sure, they'd usually come up with a reason or two beyond "they're uncool" but the reasons were superficial and usually came with more sacrifices on the crossover/SUV side (not the least of which was fuel economy).
But one of the better driving experiences I had was in a fully loaded Chrysler Town and Country Anniversary Edition (the last year they made them) which I owned for a few years. It had a lot of power, reasonable fuel economy, was incredibly comfortable and had every convenience gadget you'd expect to find in a solid luxury car and then some. Plus, the kids can't slam a sliding door into a car or pole in the parking lot.
When I was a kid, I thought my friends with giant SUVs were sooo cool. But those kids thought my mom's minivan was cool, too.
Now I have kids and they are begging us to buy a minivan, but as another poster pointed out, the price premium for a minivan is extraordinary. We're going to make it work because we have to, but it isn't going to feel good on our budget.
Maybe going full circle. There are some gear heads a couple blocks away - you know the type, always working on cars in the driveway - who seem to be pimping out minivans from the aughts. Refurbing them, painting skulls on them, putting on fancy exhaust systems. I first walked by this a few months back and wondered "are minivans cool now?" Maybe these guys have fond memories of their childhood spent in them and are trying to relive those days?
>There are some gear heads a couple blocks away - you know the type, always working on cars in the driveway - who seem to be pimping out minivans from the aughts.
Car people live for the arbitrage between market sentiment and reality when it comes to older (but not classic) cars. Minivans fall right into that category; insanely useful with powerful engines and good suspension, yet had for cheap with low miles/single owner because "no one wants to drive a minivan anymore".
Got hooked on them when I bought one to transport my aging parents.
They're fantastic for road trips thanks to the huge field of view and extra storage, and they can double as a camper van for two people if you remove the back seats.
Most guys my age here own oversized trucks but real men drive minivans.
It’s my wife’s daily driver- not mine- but I love driving the Sienna. Heck, it even has AWD. When we go on trips, there is no question if there is room enough to bring something. We travel a lot, so it’s got way more miles on it than yours, but miles well spent in comfort and I expect to get a ton more miles out of it for years to come. Love the van, anyone dissing on vans has never owned one. Both luxury and utility with no compromising.
The current Sienna is severely compromised from a utility standpoint - the design team just didn't try very hard. And, again on the current model, you have to get the AWD or it is drastically underpowered for driving when loaded up (the AWD option adds a ~30HP electric motor for the rear wheels).
And to make matters worse, it is built in the same factory that makes the Highlander, Grand Highlander, and Lexus TX. They adjust the output mix to ensure that dealers will never have a large inventory - so you are guaranteed to be forced to pay full price and will never get a good deal on it. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, except that the sticker price is expensive.
I once read very interest review, which could explain some things (sure, not 100%).
In review compared vw caddy, and same niche machines from Fiat and Peugeot, and also they added Kia H1.
There was many interest, but one thing - when H1 was totally other niche machine (light truck), it was nearly two times more expensive to buy than others in comparison, but in long run, if you you have constant feed of loads, light truck is cheaper and more convenient to use than minivan.
For example, few weeks ago I hear on one new EV tires not last usual 1000s miles, because they use tires for typical machine, but this one weight much more and run much faster.
In my neighborhood, practically 1/3 of the houses have a minivan. Sienna is the popular choice compared to the Odyssey. Buying one brand new has been a challenge, we were put on a waitlist and eventually settled with a used one instead. By far one of the most comfortable family vehicles we own. It's extremely practical, fits our family of five comfortably with car seats and all, little kids can get in and out without assistance. It's awesome. It might not look cool but at this point in my life, it's not something we care about.
In the UK, the small SUV body style is associated with nothing more than the suburban family. MPVs (minivans) are disappearing, driven mainly now only by older people who appreciate the easier access and have zero interest in cool.
The French have always been the masters of the MPV. Renault arguably invented it with its first Espace. Manufacturers such as Peugeot and Renault have successfully transformed their MPV offerings, keeping them almost as practical as the MPV form that preceded them, while reshaping the body to look more shoe-like.
My own take is that certain forms are just more appealing. Large wheels, high waistline, jutting bonnet (hood). Why this should be I have to admit I cannot work out. But do aesthetics have a "why"?
I drive an MPV, an Opel Meriva, and I love its practicality while hating its aesthetic.
Renault also gave us one of the maddest cars of all time with the 2 door MPV Renault Avantime. All a matter of taste, but personally I love the Avantime.
Can confirm (but not recommend) that a VW Sharan will ford a stream (or at least quite deeply flooded road) with only the loss of the plastic engine heat shield from underneath.
Old minivans never die, they just fade away.
We bought a new Grand Caravan in 2014 (our fifth Grand Caravan) as our "forever vehicle" to last a long time as we were approaching retirement. Now 10 years later it has done only 100k and is still going strong and has long since been paid off. I took part in a focus group for the Chrysler Pacifica that is a bit more upmarket feature and pricewise than the Grand Caravan but otherwise identical. When demand fell the grand caravan was discontinued but they are still selling the Pacificas. I guess the Pacifica and particularly the hybrid version is what counts as "cool" among the non boy racers.
It never gets brought up, but minivans lack ground clearance. When back SUVs were on the rise in the 90s, I remembered higher ride height as a popular reason that was frequently mentioned. That and the arms race of being in the bigger vehicle during and accident.
I used to joke about creating spray on mud as my million dollar product idea. Macho up your suburban assault vehicle with some many mud splatters without getting your hands dirty.
I see a lot of very well waxed and polished "off-road" vehicles in the nearby smallish city.
I've never seen a rolling coal lifted pickup on a forest road. Actually looking dirty is not part of their aesthetic.
Yours truly, former owner of a ridiculously lifted jeep that's been all over the western half of the US and regularly went up & down dry creek beds with 1+ foot vertical drops/climbs that needed the clearance. That thing never saw a clean day. Hose it until there's no longer mud on the door handles.
At least when it comes to Siennas, we are supply constrained. Good luck getting a mid trim level one at MSRP. Odysseys are still hard to get in some areas.
The other two are less desirable: Kia's had terrible crash ratings and Pacificas come with Chrysler's poor reliability stigma (somewhat justifiably).
I showed this video to my friends, and everyone agrees this Suzuki Solio (MPV, meaning has sliding passenger doors) would be perfect for getting their kids to and from school:
A great feature of sliding doors, which minivans have, is your kids can never nail a car parked next to you with the door. I think we don't really do pragmatic vehicles in USA.
Bias: I am a mini cooper owner who has transported a dishwasher inside. My car is the apex predator of parking in the city! One negative is that all truck/SUV headlights are at eye level.
> Minivans are not as survivable as a full sized SUV
This is an interesting line of thought I had not considered- as a van owner. I would appreciate some more details on how you consider an SUV is more survivable. Totally not scientific, but comparing the safety results of the 2024 Toyota Sienna with 2024 Toyota Highlander and they have very similar scores (I think it’s important to compare within the same manufacturer). Close enough for me to think there is not a big inherent difference in the two models at least. What are your thoughts?
Why you would compare a minivan to a compact SUV in terms of mass? The Sienna and Odyssey both weight ~4500 lbs. That's more or the same as the Grand Highlander or Pilot, both mid-size SUVs. Compact SUVs typically weight in the 3500-4000 lb range.
It's true that full size SUVs and trucks weigh even more though.
What is the physical mechanism that would cause a vehicle hitting a more massive vehicle to be worse than the same vehicle hitting a wall at the same speed? My understanding is the impulse is greater in the wall collision. It feels like a wall is the ideal test. I know there has been talk of getting the NHTSA to test offset frontal collisions, but it would still be stationary.
Regardless, I'm sorry that happened to your family. I would fear for mine if a similar thing happened. The arms race of ever more massive vehicles is an unfortunate social dilemma problem.
> What is the physical mechanism that would cause a vehicle hitting a more massive vehicle to be worse than the same vehicle hitting a wall at the same speed?
That’s not the comparison to draw. It should be why is hitting a more massive car worse than hitting a smaller car? The answer is in the physics of the collision and momentum.
Against a solid wall the advantage belongs to neither big nor small. The collision physics is identical, bar crumple zones and vehicle deformation.
That gets into my second quip about minivans. The rear row is unsafe since there is hardly any trunk.
Model X is no where near as spacious inside as a minivan. I have had a couple of Odyssey’s and they are much more spacious, particularly for the third row seating.
I eventually moved to an Electric Vehicle (Kia EV9) that is quite roomy, but still smaller than the minivan inside.
Prices are a separate issue. Body style - it's right there.
Manufacturers went bananas with the body style naming and it's a shame that car journalist are not correcting them. I keep reading that Tesla Model 3 is a sedan and Model Y is a SUV...
In that world, sure, we won't have anything called a minivan.
Start calling things by what they are and it's solved:
- Toyota Sienna - minvivan
- Tesla Model X - minivan
- Kia EV9 - minivan
- Tesla Model Y - hatchback
And suddenly we're exactly where we were 20 years ago.
SUV is a poor term, nowadays it's largely used to refer to crossovers/CUVs, which have unibody car chassis and are really just station wagons with some extra clearance. The nomenclature may be a lost battle at this point, but the rise of CUVs (which are certainly cars, not body-on-frame trucks) is what killed minivans and sedans.
> If you meant built on a frame, then sorry, but that's not in the SUVs DNA.
It depends on the SUV. Part of the problem with online conversations about SUVs is that SUVs are a broad category and everyone fixates on whichever extreme of that broad category supports one's point the best. Hence: SUVs allegedly being big and bulky (i.e. describing the full-size SUV end of the spectrum) while simultaneously having small interiors and only two rows of seating (i.e. describing the CUV end of the spectrum).
Same deal here. It doesn't take an expert in automotive design to recognize that (using Toyota as an example) the 4-Runner, Highlander, and RAV-4 all fall in very different spots on the "Tacoma v. Camry" structural design spectrum.
Yep. Ain't no better way demonstrating your deficiencies in wealth, status, and power than by making an extremely visible choice of "cheap, utilitarian, and unfashionable".
Neither can I, but if not it's a hell of a line. Really shows up how pathetic is society's slavery to the concept of "status symbols". Should I buy what does the job best for me personally? No, I'm supposed to follow the herd, otherwise it marks me out in a bad way.
I don't think the decline of minivans is because of "uncoolness"; I blame the US auto industry that doesn't want to sell anything but SUVs.
Our family was shopping last year for a new minivan to replace our aging Odyssey--our kids are bigger now, but we still go on trips together. We looked for Siennas and Odysseys, but nobody had a good selection in stock, and the newer models felt more cramped with worse visibility than the old ones. I felt that we were not being given the choices we wanted and were being herded toward SUVs.
There are also basically no wagons anymore. Apparently everything has to be a high-off-the-ground poor-visibility pedestrian murder machine to be profitable for the auto industry anymore.
Fuel economy standards should be fixed so that vehicles with truck chassis are treated the same as cars, tax loopholes advantaging truck chassis should be closed, there should be much stricter legal requirements for driver view of nearby low objects, possibly urban areas should have special 10 mph lower speed limits for SUV-sized vehicles, and there should be much higher financial liability for pedestrian/cyclist injuries, possibly piercing through directly to manufacturers.
Otherwise, car design has been a race to the bottom.
> There are also basically no wagons anymore. Apparently everything has to be a high-off-the-ground poor-visibility pedestrian murder machine to be profitable for the auto industry anymore.
Honestly this just indicates that you haven't seriously driven a modern CUV. What you describe sounds like a 1990 suburban.
CUVs wouldn't be so popular without being safe and easy to drive.
Sure, I'm opposed to daily driving trucks and truck frame SUVs. But thats an important distinction. The popular cars in the US today are CUVs which are built on a car chassis and generally speaking have good visibility and safety features. They are essentially scaled up wagons with awd.
>CUVs wouldn't be so popular without being safe and easy to drive.
They wouldn't be so popular if every other car on the road didn't tower over conventional sedans. Why would you want a car that rides worse, is heavier, and costs more to buy and live with? People don't want vehicles that feel sunken into the ground and increasingly that's how sedans are perceived. It's a runaway effect.
Worse than what? And why are sedans conventional? The Sedan is a terrible legacy design shape. The divided trunk and rear seats wastes a ton of space.
A wagon or sportback I can understand. And thats essentially what a small CUV is based on, along with a bit more ride height and often awd drivetrain.
The CUV is popular because it's a really functional and practical design. You don't have to spend a lot on one, but you can. Maybe test drive some more and it'll click why so many people drive them. They don't all handle poorly either, some are downright fun.
The sedan, designed well, is the ideal shape that you want to cleanly cut through the air with the least amount of wind resistance. As you go up in size the area that a car covers increases, as does weight, among other things. So you lose the efficiency of the body shape. And the higher off the ground you go, the more drag you get because now air deflects underneath the car and will 'catch' in different spots. That's why you take like a prius with front air deflectors, they design it that way to create a bit of a ground effect reducing drag.
The "CUV", compact SUV, is popular because it's higher off the ground. Because as other cars have gotten larger, people feel less safe with traditional sedans. Sedans, which worked well before because really people don't carry a lot with their cars most of the time. They've taken the hatchback design, since with rollover it's difficult to make those high in cargo capacity, and blown it up and thrown AWD on it. Take makes the car more expensive, it's more metal and plastic.
Doing that spoils the handling because now you've taken a chassis where the wheels would be parallel and lifted it. Making it so the body rolls more, providing a stiffer chassis feel, compounded by the additional weight for now larger components like the rear hatch. And you get a worse riding vehicle. I mean if the scope of the vehicles you've driven is just SUVs, then yeah, they might seem very sporty. But most of that is just marketing. That's why manufacturers don't really make sports cars into SUVs, because there's a lot of compromises in doing that.
> Doing that spoils the handling
On the contrary, having driven plenty of cars with and without AWD, adding AWD is a massive boon to handling for me, even outside of "rough" conditions like mud/ice/snow/gravel.
The issue is the height, weight, etc, not really the AWD.
Especially since most vehicles’ AWD systems (especially if you’re talking crossovers) are really just “2WD but we can briefly engage the other two wheels if you’re trying to get moving on a patch of ice”. (One axle is not being driven except when the other is slipping, and in many cases there are speed limits above which this won’t engage. Many of these systems rely on clutch packs that, if they were engaged continuously, would overheat.)
The easiest way I can describe the difference is to go test drive a Tesla model 3 and a model Y. Same basic car. If you go down the road and yank the steering wheel a bit because of the weight of the things you'll find the model Y gets significantly more front heavy in a turn compared to the model 3.
> haven't seriously driven a modern CUV
I've driven these a few times as rentals; I don't know if that counts as "serious". They are more expensive, they handle worse, they are heavier, they are less stable because they are significantly higher off the ground, they have poorer visibility as a driver especially of nearby low objects, all else equal they get worse gas mileage, and are basically the same size inside so that the seating and cargo is not appreciably different compared to a wagon.
In my opinion and for my use cases they are worse in every way except for profit for the manufacturer.
The Forester is basically perfect, IMO. (Though it would be more perfect as a hybrid.)
https://priceonomics.com/how-an-ad-campaign-made-lesbians-fa...
Found the Coloradan!
???
Subaru at one point was the most popular automotive brand in Colorado.
OK, but it's also one of the most common cars in the whole country, so it's just a weird statement.
They were making a joke about how everyone in Colorado seems to drive a Forester. That's all.
There's nothing wrong with daily driving a truck frame SUV like a Toyota 4Runner. Those are very practical vehicles for anyone who occasionally needs to drive on rough dirt roads or tow a small trailer (and that's a lot of people).
> Those are very practical vehicles for anyone who occasionally needs to drive on rough dirt roads or tow a small trailer (and that's a lot of people).
Most people don’t need this beyond what most modern vehicles can already do.
I’ve got what is termed a “compact sport sedan”.
I live in rural Canada. I can guarantee that car has seen more gravel, mud and barely roads that most cars will see in their lifetime, trucks included. Never mind the snow and ice. The experience is in no way challenging or compromised.
I regularly use it to tow a 5’x10’ trailer. Most I’ve pulled is just shy of 3,000lbs. Only compromise there I’ve found is pulling it up the 8% grade headed toward my house I had to take it down from 6th to 5th gear to maintain 70mph.
This is _way_ more than most people demand of their vehicles.
A truck is practical for the average person in much the same way that using a kinetic orbital strike to drive a nail is a practical as a replacement for a hammer.
That’s the equivalent of wearing rubber boots or cleats everyday to the office. My next vehicle will be a Cat 797 just in case i need to haul 400 tons.
Yeah but it's easier to own two pairs of shoes than it is to own two cars.
Come on, be serious. Have you ever even driven a 4Runner? Ridiculous hyperbole doesn't help your point.
Well, there is because it's wasteful. Wasteful of material, and finite resources that we in the US subsidize to keep fuel prices from being adjusted to what they would be relative to the rest of the world. Further roads now in modern society are better than they ever have been, especially compared to the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Tires are better. You mean to tell me these days we need more capable vehicles compared to the land yachts and economy cars we drove back in the day? Can't forget a Buick park avenue V6 can be used to tow, and other folks in the world use things like priuses to tow trailers. And frankly I've gone down rough dirt roads in old civics before.
So yeah. Needless to say the practically argument is lackluster relative to the actual capabilities of most vehicles. I think folks are just overestimating their use cases which will cost us in the long run because you've financed yourself to death through the cost of ownership.
Alright, well as someone who routinely puts both the cargo-hauling capabilities and 4WD of his Tacoma to full use, y'all can pry my truck out of my cold dead fingers. Just because you can get away with not needing a truck doesn't mean I can.
Oh please. Everything is "wasteful" to some extent. Unless you're living in a mud hut with no climate control and walking everywhere then your virtue signaling is pure hypocrisy.
If the concern is fuel usage then let's raise the fuel tax. Moralizing and telling other people that they like the wrong things isn't going to accomplish anything.
>Fuel economy standards should be fixed so that vehicles with truck chassis are treated the same as cars
Subjecting big trucks to the same standards as small cars either makes the fuel standards pointless (as they cater to trucks), or outlaws trucks entirely, which is political suicide. People already pay extra for big trucks, which suggests it's something they intrinsically like, and will oppose efforts to ban them.
You're not wrong about how (either directly or indirectly) outlawing trucks would be political suicide, but man, that's a grim thing to think about. The fate of the world hangs in the balance of people whose top concerns include being able to drive monstrously huge cars.
All hail democracy!
However terrible single party dictatorships like China is, at least they can build high-speed rail (right over your property they've forced you to relinquish) or force cities to electrify without needing to consider the moaning voters who are resistant to change.
If you want grim realize its the same with guns.
Guns is just the fate of the US, no other developed country has that problem. This obsession with SUVs and blobby crossovers affects everywhere.
To add to that, in Europe I've seen a lot more folks now preferring SUVs because in an accident, many buyers approach it with an "it's better to be alive in your SUV, even if it was responsible for killing the small car passengers" mentality.
I think the problem is that everyone assumes an accident would be the other vehicle's fault, so they're buying protection against someone else hitting them. In that mindset's hypothetical, the small car is acceptable damage because the small car caused the accident. Again in that mindset, why would you volunteer to die in an accident you didn't cause?
I'm not really sure what you can do to fix it, and anything you could do would be political suicide. I'd like to think if i were in charge, I'd have them banned for urban use by the end of the week, but I'd also be out of office by next Monday.
> Again in that mindset, why would you volunteer to die in an accident you didn't cause?
Because I would rather die than kill. I honestly can't understand how anybody would prefer the opposite. How do you live with yourself knowing that you have killed somebody?
Firstly there's a lot of people out there, often in inexplicably clean pickup trucks, who have 4-letter words for that.
Secondly, this mindset is also considering at in a collision with a larger vehicle, like a truck, the SUV means possible survival, small car means certain death, and the trucker walks away anyway (no, that's not a guarantee but it's heavily implied by the "big is safe" message). The fate of a hypothetical small car is only a subset of possibilities, and also can be mostly discounted because:
Thirdly, if you are driving an urban tank in order to defend against the bad drivers (you being, naturally, a very good driver), anyone who dies in a crash with you killed themselves. It's your job to defend you and yours (going by SUV adverts, they're very photogenic and adoring) from that brutal recklessness.
I don't think it's complicated psychology, even if I think it's extremely misguided.
Not least, the tank is disproportionately a danger to your own kids, has shit visibility and is probably not as safe in a collision as it might feel, leading to a false sense of invulnerability and confidence to push into dangerous situations.
Or alternatively, “It’s better for me and my family to NOT be the ones dead in a small car if we get hit by an SUV.” mentality.
[dead]
If by "fate of the world" you mean the effects of CO2, passenger vehicles are approximately 10% of CO2 emissions [1]. So I don't think that excessively large cars are going to be the determining factor in the fate of the world, and you can cut those guys a little slack.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport
At minimum the height of the grill of the trucks masquerading as cars needs to be limited. It's not a big deal except for the less brutal looks and actually meaningful change which won't be political suicide.
They could change the rules that effectively penalize smaller vehicles. They can still have categories but be equally stringent within each category.
The reality is that manufacturers have captured the EPA regulations and are using them to steer the market in the direction they want, and in doing so actually making the environment (to say nothing of road safety) worse.
Manufacturers want more profit per-car. They also want to push the market into categories that have higher tariffs on imports. They don't want to be in the market of compact cars or sedans or even, increasingly, large but lightweight vehicles like minivans so they steer the market and regulations away from these vehicle classes.
> urban areas should have special 10 mph lower speed limits for SUV-sized vehicles
This is such a good idea that I've never heard before. Are there any good blog posts ot whatever that explore it?
Here's a precedent, UK limits heavier vehicle upper speeds: https://www.parkers.co.uk/vans-pickups/advice/speed-limits/
Every time I see posts like this, I just know the poster has no concept of daily life in the interior of America. Trucks suck in urban environments, but then CAFE standards destroyed the small truck.
Subaru still makes them. I would buy something else since I hate the anti privacy of the company and cars but it's all I can easily get
They don’t make any 3 row wagons right? Only lux like BMW and Mercedes do I think.
VW has a new wagon, but it's only available in Europe, not the US.
Volvo, MB, Audi and BMW continue to make them too.
Not very well, though (and I don't think BMW sells wagons in the US anymore). They are positioned as "cool & snobby", rather than "useful".
Peak wagon was the P3 Volvo V70/XC70, built on the Ford EUCD platform [1], which had amazing utility via tie-down rails, 40/20/40 fold-flat middle seats, and a front passenger seat that folded flat to create a uniform load floor for carrying 10 foot long boards. They were better at being useful than the Subaru Outback and yet had higher quality leather and carpets. And don't forget the vertical rear hatch, giving more interior space with a larger window (and larger rear wiper!) that gave them excellent rearward visibility.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_EUCD_platform
BMW does not sell a wagon in the US since 2019. My dad got the last generation they sold and its a joy to drive honestly.
An EV station wagon would be amazing for range, utility and safety.
Prius V! Hybrid, not fully EV, and they don't make them anymore.
The Grand Caravan (not the Pacifica) is an extremely sorted-out vehicle. I bought a 2019 which was supposed to be the last model year, but they had enough demand to continue manufacturing them in 2020. Ultimately it was uneconomical to bring them into compliance with current regs so that was the end of the line for them. It has exciting features such as physical buttons on the dash, remote start on the fob, a touchscreen only for the Garmin navigation system (no subscription needed) and seats that fold flat into the floor. The 3.6L Pentastar engine is a workhorse and it tows like crazy. Traction control and ABS perform as expected. City MPG is lackluster but on the highway it does very well.
Apparently they can haul 50+ sheets of 4x8 plywood with the door closed (and without removing the seats).
Whoa. That's ~3000 pounds.
If it's 50 sheets of 1/8" balsa wood, it's about 166 lbs.
If it's 50 sheets of 1.25" lignum vitae, it's about 13,100 lbs.
3000 lbs seems like a reasonable estimate.
Is it?
How heavy is a sheet of unspecified plywood?
1 1/8” Plywood - 85 lbs 3/4” Plywood - 61 lbs 5/8” Plywood - 50 lbs 1/2” Plywood - 41 lbs 3/8” Plywood - 36 lbs 1/4” Plywood - 22 lbs
about 50
Old boring uncool platforms that no engineer or middle managing bean counter with career ambitions wants anything to do with are always the most sorted because they're generally free of self interested parties trying to screw with them to the detriment of the overall result.
I miss my T&C, the stow-and-go seating was probably the best feature I've ever owned in a car.
I do not miss the 3.6L Pentastar. I thought the rocker arm ticking would eventually kill the engine but the electrical system took care of that way ahead of time. (Buy a refurbished TIPM while they're still available). I see people around me proudly driving their tricked out Grand Cherokees and all I can think is "you got screwed".
Part of the issue is that Minivans are really expensive, and parents with lots of kids tend to not have as much money as childless adults.
for Cars and SUVs:
- A Chevy Equinox starts at $28k MSRP.
- A Toyota RAV4 starts at $29k MSRP.
- A Toyota Prius (PHEV) starts at $33k MSRP.
but for minivans:
- A Honda Odyssey (gas only) starts at $42k MSRP.
- A Chrysler Pacifica (PHEV) starts at $51k MSRP.
Minivans are actually really popular for families in the midwest, for folks who can afford it. If you can't, the option becomes "Get a Minivan, or get an SUV and save $15,000 USD", which obviously skews a lot of families towards the SUV.
So shoving two or three kids in the back of a cheap SUV is pretty normal, event though it's less convenient in a lot of other ways.
If you have more than 2 kids the minivan is the clear winner. A two row SUV can't hold 3 car seats, and even a 3 row SUV will have trouble, plus strapping kids in is way harder.
Actually SUVs often have more width interior side-to-side in bench setups, making it possible to put in 3 child car seats side-by-side (child seats are often very wide, full width of seat and wider than topical adult hip width). Minivans have less, especially in back row where wheel wells are more more likely to be involved since the minivan doesn’t sit as high as an SUV.
You absolutely can put 3 car seats in two rows. Check out Diono car seats for example.
I generally don't disagree about SUVs, but minivans adhere to the same regulatory scheme: they get their truck status by GVWR>6k lbs., as opposed to by high clearance and steep angles.
I think your issue comes from fuel consumption standards (smaller greenhouse takes less AC) and the unstoppable proliferation of curtain airbags, which won't stop until A, B and C pillars of all vehicles are supplanted by The Pillar, with no windows or ability to see beside one's vehicle, save by cameras.
I'm not sure it's just the US
We're renting a car in France soon for 4 adults and luggage - I assumed the venerable Espace would be the move, but the hire websites didn't offer them
Looking at the wiki page, it now seems to have turned into an SUV...
I don't know -- we rented a car for 5 adults + luggage in FR a few years ago, and we wound up with a Citroen C3 Aircross[1].
"This is the biggest one we have" was the only answer we got, so we made it work.
[edit: corrected a typo]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C3_Aircross
I believe we ended up booking a 3008; although somehow the hire companies get away with cheekily putting '*or similar vehicle', so who knows
> I blame the US auto industry that doesn't want to sell anything but SUVs.
We all voted for the people who voted for... <repeat for several dozen layers> ...wrote the rules that incentivized the current dumb status quo into existence.
The US auto industry is basically a case study in layers of unintended consequences.
Last year auto companies were still recovering from the pandemic and supplies were limited. If everyone wanted to buy a minivan the auto makers would make more minivans. They like money.
I actually think it really is because it is uncool. A whole generation of kids growing up spent too much time in the back of a minivan and now refuse to ever subject someone else to that. Minivans of the 90s were pretty bad (most vehicles in the 90s were). Your mom drove a minivan. Your mom's minivan smelled bad, the air didn't work well, it rode poorly making you sick. The minivans of the 90s were incredibly practical and incredibly bad at the same time.
Why would the industry want to do anything but sell as many units as possible?
Having low inventory of minivans is consistent with people not wanting them, right?
There are only so many manufacturers of a given vehicle segment. If they all soft collude to stick with higher margin vehicles there's not much consumers can do about it. Car manufacturing isn't a liquid market where new entrants can quickly jump in and undercut the incumbents.
If minivans were popular, manufacturers would make and sell them. They're not colluding: if the minivans were really that popular, just one manufacturer would have to ignore them and build lots of minivans and take over the market.
The simple fact is that they just aren't very popular, and consumers (at least the ones who buy brand-new) really want SUVs and pretty much nothing else. Stop whining about the manufacturers, and look at your idiot neighbors who are all choosing these monstrosities. (Also look at your crappy government, that your neighbors elected, that gives highly preferential treatment to SUVs with their "regulation".) The manufacturers are just giving people what they want; anything else would be leaving money on the table and losing to their competition.
Low inventory doesn't tell us much. If there are three on the lot and the manufacturer sent them last year, sales are slow. If there are three on the lot and twenty were dropped off today, sales are pretty brisk.
As a van person (grew up with an 1987 Aerostar, ordered a 2017 Pacifica in 2016 (sold to Carvana this year when I got engine trouble), bought an 1981 Vanagon recently that might move on its own power soon), the problem is Stow and Go is clearly awesome, but owning a Chrysler isn't. Having a hybrid would be nice for fuel efficiency, but Chrysler removes features in their hybrid (no power rear seats, no Stow and Go), Toyota doesn't even let you take the middle seats out in the Hybrid Sienna. Minivans that aren't flexible aren't really worth it IMHO. If Honda figured out how to fold the middle seats into the floor, I'd buy an Odyssey in minutes.
All the commercial small vans pulled out of the market too; I wanted to get a Ford Transit Connect, but they left, and the used market for them is weird: mostly 100k+ miles. Nissan NV left, Ram Promaster City; neither offered a passenger model. I think I left something out. Mercedes Metris is still in, I think, but it's very basic. I'd like something more on the basic end, but still with fold into the floor rear seats at least.
Metris owner here.
It’s out as of last year. What’s on the lot is all there is.
That said, if you are ok with basic it’s a really hard vehicle to beat. It’ll tow 5000, has a legitimately flat load floor, and can carry 2,200lbs if you take out the seats (without hitting GVWR). Fuel mileage is pretty good (20ish in town, 28ish on the highway).
Haven’t seen this mentioned yet but “light trucks” are a classification that has more favorable regulations for automakers. SUVs and pickups qualify.
I’m not an expert on this but minivans as passenger vehicles could be less desirable for the automaker as they have more stringent safety and emission regulations that cut into their margins in those vehicles
>SUVs and pickups qualify.
Are we talking actual SUVs only (eg. Cadillac Escalades), or also the far more popular crossovers?
Most popular crossovers are also classified as light trucks under current federal rules.
Totally. Odyssey availability is a bit better now, but good luck getting a Sienna.
We were in the market and ended up getting a 24 Ody exl. There are some discounted models here and there because of the 25 (very mild) refresh.
Yeah I saw a thing a little bit ago where "Odyssey" was one of the most popular vehicles for people when they originally start a search for a new car, but then by the time they get to a purchase they end up with an SUV.
Modern SUVs and Minivans are converging on something that's not really as good as either. A minivan was a box on four wheels maximizing internal space. An SUV sacrificed that for better towing, maybe offroading. Nowadays they're making minivans with no internal space and SUVs that can't tow or offroad.
Example that most markets are designed
Full-size MPVs (what we call a minivan) died out in the UK a long time ago, so long that when I needed one I had to import one from Japan (a Toyota Vellfire). Apart from the fuel consumption, I absolutely love it. I get jealous when I visit the states and see the size of the MPVs you have over there though.
They seem to be making a small comeback in the UK recently though, with the Lexus LM (which is basically the same as my Vellfire) and Maxus Mifa 9, a Chinese EV, both being released here.
My minivan is proof of virility and demonstrates that I am not compensating for anything. It also moves a hell of a lot of lumber when the seats are folded down.
Try that in some bubble shaped car-based SUV or a short-bed pickup.
In the sci-fi series The Expanse, there's a Bezos-style rich tycoon character who flaunts his wealth by purposefully not getting hair treatments and instead allows his male pattern baldness to be on display. He's so rich he can afford to not care what anyone thinks, and he wants everyone to know it.
Interesting anecdote about a work of fiction, but what does it have to do with anything?
The comment is referring back to "not compensating for anything". Choosing to keep a balding head and not caring what other people think is a power move when having a full head of hair becomes trivial.
It's kind of entertaining that both are vanity.
It seems pretty clearly related to the post it is a reply to.
Drawing a moral equivalency to some random event in some random contemporary work of fiction as a means of moralizing isn't some kind of awesome megadunk “own” or anything—it's actually pretty lame.
Why do you think it was attempting to be anything of the sort?
Guy 1 jokes about how he's so confident in himself he drives a minivan.
Person 2 says "ha that reminds me of a character in a story".
It's two people joking in a subthread.
> My minivan is proof of virility and demonstrates that I am not compensating for anything.
Why do people constantly equate what car someone drives with the size of their reproductive organs? I usually only see this from people who reflexively look down on people who own more expensive vehicles than them.
It's weird.
Live your life. Who cares what you or anyone else chooses to drive. I promise you, whatever vehicle you drive, nobody sane actually cares.
If you are driving these things around urban streets where my kids and I are walking or riding bikes, I certainly care what you drive. I'd prefer that it (a) has clear visibility for the driver in all directions, so you can see us, (b) is lower, lighter weight, and traveling slower so you have less chance of killing us, (c) is quieter, and (d) pumps out less air pollution because I don't want to be smelling your exhaust.
If you drive an oversized SUV which you have further lifted off the ground, removed the muffler from, and make exhaust that gives everyone a headache, people are going to assume you are a creepy asshole with no self respect or respect for your neighbors. The vehicle becomes a kind of enraged roar of emotional insecurity, from the "everyone else needs to always be thinking and talking about me, and it doesn't matter why" school of human interaction.
My daily driver is a 2300 pound miata with a stock exhaust. It's small and low to the ground and only has 181 HP. I think this is the lightest production car you can get--certainly close.
I see people in Cybertrucks and some other electric trucks--they don't have local pollution, but between the weight and the height, I'm living pretty dangerously. You always notice the big cars in the miata, but the big, heavy electrics is when I started feeling about as protected as a cyclist in it.
Still, I don't think they're creepy assholes who want to murder me or have emotional issues or whatever. I think they just like their big dumb truck, just like I like my ridiculous small car. I don't have to drive this car, it's impractical, it's dangerous, if someone kills me that'll probably ruin their day, but I do it because I like it. I'm not psychologically deranged with a death wish. Sometimes people just like different things.
> Still, I don't think they're creepy assholes who want to murder me or have emotional issues or whatever.
I can infer that you do not ride a bicycle very frequently. Once you do, you quickly learn which kind of vehicles act most aggressively around you.
> If you drive an oversized SUV which you have further lifted off the ground, removed the muffler from, and make exhaust that gives me a headache, everyone is going to assume you are a creepy asshole with no self respect or respect for your neighbors.
Or maybe it's just you being weird with your city-dweller assumptions?
no this happens both in and out of cities. Just moved out of the American south where something called "rolling coal" is common practice in suburbs, cities, rural areas- a term heard fairly often. A bizarre amount of pickup owners modify diesel engines to produce thick, black smoke as a means of showing off or as a nuisance to others. I know I had a lot of lifted trucks cut me off and roll coal
Hear me out, but childhood trauma and neglect is common in rural areas. This was especially the case 30-40 years ago when family violence prevention programs were just lip service and practically non-existent.
I assume those children grew up to become maladapted adults with Cluster B traits. This manifests as antisocial nuisance behaviours such as rolling coal.
Childhood trauma isn't an excuse for being an asshole, though.
They could drive a modest sedan and with the difference they saved they could afford some real good therapy.
Oh, I assure you they're a problem outside of the city as well. The whole shtick of preener trucks is performative masculinity, because otherwise you'd optimize for a vehicle that actually does things rather than one that just makes a bunch of noise/smoke for fun while not even moving that well. And so "late to the meeting of the small penis club" is just a good mental label to have some pity and not end up taking this contemporary dirtbag trend too seriously.
It's not "weird" to not want gratuitous nuisance, health problems, or slaughtered children. Indeed, indifference to these seems extremely weird (sociopathic), and I would appreciate it if such people stay far from civilization out in the desert or whatever.
(Though they should also be paying their fair share for the environmental costs of the CO2 emissions they pump out which are putting us on a path toward literal un-livability of the Earth, to which end gasoline should probably cost like $15/gallon.)
> It's not "weird" to not want gratuitous nuisance, health problems, or slaughtered children.
Using outrageous hyperbole in this manner might be even more weird than your original baseless assumptions.
> fair share... of the CO2 emissions they pump out which are putting us on a path toward literal un-livability of the Earth
Your hyperbole is putting on a path toward literal un-livability of the Earth. It's making me nauseous because of how weird it is.
Can you explain why you'd characterize it as hyperbole? Larger vehicles are demonstrably more dangerous[1], especially to children, and do put out more CO2 emissions. In what other context is it socially acceptable for people to put externalities like those brought by SUVs onto those around them? The one I can mostly think of is secondhand smoke, which at least in my part of the world is pretty heavily looked down on.
[1]
> compact SUVs, full-size SUVs, and pickup trucks all result in a significantly higher probability of pedestrian death when compared to a similar collision involving a car. Compact SUVs increase the probability of death by 63%, pickups increase the probability by 68%, and full-size SUVs increase the probability by 99%
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221201222...
[dead]
>Why do people constantly equate what car someone drives with the size of their reproductive organs?
Minivan --> probably has a lot of kids. Seems like a fair connection!
Penis size does not correlate to spermatozoal viability.
/s
The other side of the coin is just as bad.
You load big furniture on the roof of or haul building materials in or tow something with a car and the same demographics that said you didn't need a truck to do those things gawk at you with judgement like they're watching a homeless man prepare to cook a pigeon he just nabbed.
I think you missed the joke.
There's a lot of that on YC.
It is often difficult to pickup sarcasm in text. I did not interpret OP's comment as sarcasm - probably because I've run into that sentiment quite often.
My current work truck is a minivan with the rear seating rows completely removed.
It hauls whatever needs hauling, and it's quite pleasant to drive in all weather.
(And I dare say that it has competently done a lot more off-road duty than the majority of SUVs and pickup trucks ever will.)
Don't miss the 2003 New York Time article linked inside: https://archive.is/3yox8
It's full of gems, like this:
Eventually, though, the minivan became so indelibly associated with suburbia that even soccer moms shunned it. Soon image-conscious parents were going to soccer games in vehicles designed to ford Yukon streams and invade Middle Eastern countries.
> ford Yukon streams and invade Middle Eastern countries
That could be a verse from the Canyonero ad jingle
Forgetting that the Yukon is a GMC model, I was trying to figure out what words were missing between "designed" and "Ford Yukon", and then, as my mind was on the cusp of finishing grokking the actual meaning of the sentence, what an "Invade (make) Middle Eastern (model)" would look like.
As someone who bought a Honda Odyssey a few months ago, I don't believe this article.
I wanted to save money and buy a used minivan. However, in my area, used minivans (in decent condition) cost nearly the same as brand-new ones, so I got a new one.
Nearly every house in my neighborhood has a minivan parked out front.
They are such useful vehicles.
I can't throw my kids in the back of a truck. And if I'm hauling non-human objects, I usually want to cover and protect it from weather and theft, a minivan does that! A truck... not so much.
We bought a minivan (Sienna) but it barely fit in our garage (had to fold in the mirrors). Ended up returning it for a 3 row SUV. But it made us notice and wonder: do we see so many minivans parked out front because they don’t fit in the garage?
Uncoolness is a bigger factor than people give credit to. I remember when I was about ten years old my parents having a conversation with the new neighbors about cars which bled into how they'd "never ever own a Station Wagon." I remember the conversation because the neighbors had not fully moved in and the following day pulled up in their 80s (was it a Caprice Classic) Station Wagon complete with that weird wood door stripe (later making an appearance on minivans!) It even had a Barry Manilow bumper sticker on it!
My folks didn't do the Minivan, either, but it was just the 4 of us. Growing up, everyone I knew spoke about minivans like the Station Wagon. Ironically, all buying up things that are generally classified as Station Wagons, look exactly like station wagons but are now marketed as "crossovers." I doubt that would have worked in 1989, but style is fickle.
All of my data is anecdotal, but everyone I know that "chose to get a car that a Minivan would have served better" did so because "they hated minivans." Sure, they'd usually come up with a reason or two beyond "they're uncool" but the reasons were superficial and usually came with more sacrifices on the crossover/SUV side (not the least of which was fuel economy).
But one of the better driving experiences I had was in a fully loaded Chrysler Town and Country Anniversary Edition (the last year they made them) which I owned for a few years. It had a lot of power, reasonable fuel economy, was incredibly comfortable and had every convenience gadget you'd expect to find in a solid luxury car and then some. Plus, the kids can't slam a sliding door into a car or pole in the parking lot.
When I was a kid, I thought my friends with giant SUVs were sooo cool. But those kids thought my mom's minivan was cool, too. Now I have kids and they are begging us to buy a minivan, but as another poster pointed out, the price premium for a minivan is extraordinary. We're going to make it work because we have to, but it isn't going to feel good on our budget.
Maybe going full circle. There are some gear heads a couple blocks away - you know the type, always working on cars in the driveway - who seem to be pimping out minivans from the aughts. Refurbing them, painting skulls on them, putting on fancy exhaust systems. I first walked by this a few months back and wondered "are minivans cool now?" Maybe these guys have fond memories of their childhood spent in them and are trying to relive those days?
>There are some gear heads a couple blocks away - you know the type, always working on cars in the driveway - who seem to be pimping out minivans from the aughts.
Car people live for the arbitrage between market sentiment and reality when it comes to older (but not classic) cars. Minivans fall right into that category; insanely useful with powerful engines and good suspension, yet had for cheap with low miles/single owner because "no one wants to drive a minivan anymore".
Tricking out vans has also been a thing since vans were a thing. Which is probably part of why VW is bringing back the microbus (sort of).
> putting on fancy exhaust systems
Yeah these are not the people we want/need, either.
I drive a 2009 Sienna with only 96k miles.
Got hooked on them when I bought one to transport my aging parents.
They're fantastic for road trips thanks to the huge field of view and extra storage, and they can double as a camper van for two people if you remove the back seats.
Most guys my age here own oversized trucks but real men drive minivans.
It’s my wife’s daily driver- not mine- but I love driving the Sienna. Heck, it even has AWD. When we go on trips, there is no question if there is room enough to bring something. We travel a lot, so it’s got way more miles on it than yours, but miles well spent in comfort and I expect to get a ton more miles out of it for years to come. Love the van, anyone dissing on vans has never owned one. Both luxury and utility with no compromising.
The current Sienna is severely compromised from a utility standpoint - the design team just didn't try very hard. And, again on the current model, you have to get the AWD or it is drastically underpowered for driving when loaded up (the AWD option adds a ~30HP electric motor for the rear wheels).
And to make matters worse, it is built in the same factory that makes the Highlander, Grand Highlander, and Lexus TX. They adjust the output mix to ensure that dealers will never have a large inventory - so you are guaranteed to be forced to pay full price and will never get a good deal on it. This wouldn't be such a bad thing, except that the sticker price is expensive.
I once read very interest review, which could explain some things (sure, not 100%).
In review compared vw caddy, and same niche machines from Fiat and Peugeot, and also they added Kia H1.
There was many interest, but one thing - when H1 was totally other niche machine (light truck), it was nearly two times more expensive to buy than others in comparison, but in long run, if you you have constant feed of loads, light truck is cheaper and more convenient to use than minivan.
For example, few weeks ago I hear on one new EV tires not last usual 1000s miles, because they use tires for typical machine, but this one weight much more and run much faster.
In my neighborhood, practically 1/3 of the houses have a minivan. Sienna is the popular choice compared to the Odyssey. Buying one brand new has been a challenge, we were put on a waitlist and eventually settled with a used one instead. By far one of the most comfortable family vehicles we own. It's extremely practical, fits our family of five comfortably with car seats and all, little kids can get in and out without assistance. It's awesome. It might not look cool but at this point in my life, it's not something we care about.
https://archive.is/RoCwU
https://archive.today/RoCwU
I hate reCAPTCHA.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240927122501/https://www.theat...
could also be correlated to people having fewer kids?
Convincing but inaccurate.
In the UK, the small SUV body style is associated with nothing more than the suburban family. MPVs (minivans) are disappearing, driven mainly now only by older people who appreciate the easier access and have zero interest in cool.
The French have always been the masters of the MPV. Renault arguably invented it with its first Espace. Manufacturers such as Peugeot and Renault have successfully transformed their MPV offerings, keeping them almost as practical as the MPV form that preceded them, while reshaping the body to look more shoe-like.
My own take is that certain forms are just more appealing. Large wheels, high waistline, jutting bonnet (hood). Why this should be I have to admit I cannot work out. But do aesthetics have a "why"?
I drive an MPV, an Opel Meriva, and I love its practicality while hating its aesthetic.
Renault also gave us one of the maddest cars of all time with the 2 door MPV Renault Avantime. All a matter of taste, but personally I love the Avantime.
with a growing homeless problem, a minivan would be ideal. I'd get one just to go camping and "bum" around when I retire.
Can confirm (but not recommend) that a VW Sharan will ford a stream (or at least quite deeply flooded road) with only the loss of the plastic engine heat shield from underneath.
The 2025 Kia Carnival is trying hard to sneak the benefits of a minivan into something that can still pass for an SUV.
Old minivans never die, they just fade away. We bought a new Grand Caravan in 2014 (our fifth Grand Caravan) as our "forever vehicle" to last a long time as we were approaching retirement. Now 10 years later it has done only 100k and is still going strong and has long since been paid off. I took part in a focus group for the Chrysler Pacifica that is a bit more upmarket feature and pricewise than the Grand Caravan but otherwise identical. When demand fell the grand caravan was discontinued but they are still selling the Pacificas. I guess the Pacifica and particularly the hybrid version is what counts as "cool" among the non boy racers.
I would drive a minivan in a heartbeat if they were easier to find with AWD/4WD.
In Germany, the VW Minivan (“T models) were and still are iconic, and desirable. They are just very expensive.
It never gets brought up, but minivans lack ground clearance. When back SUVs were on the rise in the 90s, I remembered higher ride height as a popular reason that was frequently mentioned. That and the arms race of being in the bigger vehicle during and accident.
Beg my pardon but what high ground clearance is needed for?
Ironically, the pretense of an adventurous lifestyle.
I used to joke about creating spray on mud as my million dollar product idea. Macho up your suburban assault vehicle with some many mud splatters without getting your hands dirty.
I see a lot of very well waxed and polished "off-road" vehicles in the nearby smallish city. I've never seen a rolling coal lifted pickup on a forest road. Actually looking dirty is not part of their aesthetic.
Yours truly, former owner of a ridiculously lifted jeep that's been all over the western half of the US and regularly went up & down dry creek beds with 1+ foot vertical drops/climbs that needed the clearance. That thing never saw a clean day. Hose it until there's no longer mud on the door handles.
It really does help in snow events.
Speed bumps and high curbs
high curbs? is it even legal?
Drive slow and don't go up curbs (there's generally people there!)?
At least when it comes to Siennas, we are supply constrained. Good luck getting a mid trim level one at MSRP. Odysseys are still hard to get in some areas.
The other two are less desirable: Kia's had terrible crash ratings and Pacificas come with Chrysler's poor reliability stigma (somewhat justifiably).
I'm hoping that part of the Tesla Robotaxi unveiling in nine days is a minivan-esque vehicle.
Minivans are a rock bottom alternative to homelessness which is actually pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=living+in+a+min...
Give me a cute kei van. Honda NBox isn't cool, but it's not lame either.
> It is the least cool vehicle ever designed
VW Caravelle is pretty cool. Unlike SUVs.
I showed this video to my friends, and everyone agrees this Suzuki Solio (MPV, meaning has sliding passenger doors) would be perfect for getting their kids to and from school:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA2t06RAGTk
A great feature of sliding doors, which minivans have, is your kids can never nail a car parked next to you with the door. I think we don't really do pragmatic vehicles in USA.
Bias: I am a mini cooper owner who has transported a dishwasher inside. My car is the apex predator of parking in the city! One negative is that all truck/SUV headlights are at eye level.
"If you live in a driving city, and especially if you have a family, a minivan conversation will eventually take place."
No. Never. Not even close. My wife knows better than to start this conversation.
We always went with wagons instead and they've been cheaper, actually fun to drive and don't look like you gave up on your life and dreams.
Nonsense.
The minivan and the hatchback are the 2 most popular styles of automobile in the USA right now, but people call them "crossovers."
Look at crossovers. They are all minivans or hatchbacks.
Minivans are not as survivable as a full sized SUV. Also the rear row is basically useless for adults.
> Minivans are not as survivable as a full sized SUV
This is an interesting line of thought I had not considered- as a van owner. I would appreciate some more details on how you consider an SUV is more survivable. Totally not scientific, but comparing the safety results of the 2024 Toyota Sienna with 2024 Toyota Highlander and they have very similar scores (I think it’s important to compare within the same manufacturer). Close enough for me to think there is not a big inherent difference in the two models at least. What are your thoughts?
https://www.nhtsa.gov/ratings
I didn’t dig into their crash experiments but I guess it’s car against immovable object.
That’s not a realistic real world scenario. My family has been in two minor low speed crashes in a compact SUV against a truck.
Both times our car was obliterated the passengers concussed and the other car was perfectly fine.
I said enough is enough. The only thing that matter is mass.
Why you would compare a minivan to a compact SUV in terms of mass? The Sienna and Odyssey both weight ~4500 lbs. That's more or the same as the Grand Highlander or Pilot, both mid-size SUVs. Compact SUVs typically weight in the 3500-4000 lb range.
It's true that full size SUVs and trucks weigh even more though.
What is the physical mechanism that would cause a vehicle hitting a more massive vehicle to be worse than the same vehicle hitting a wall at the same speed? My understanding is the impulse is greater in the wall collision. It feels like a wall is the ideal test. I know there has been talk of getting the NHTSA to test offset frontal collisions, but it would still be stationary.
Regardless, I'm sorry that happened to your family. I would fear for mine if a similar thing happened. The arms race of ever more massive vehicles is an unfortunate social dilemma problem.
> What is the physical mechanism that would cause a vehicle hitting a more massive vehicle to be worse than the same vehicle hitting a wall at the same speed?
That’s not the comparison to draw. It should be why is hitting a more massive car worse than hitting a smaller car? The answer is in the physics of the collision and momentum.
Against a solid wall the advantage belongs to neither big nor small. The collision physics is identical, bar crumple zones and vehicle deformation.
That gets into my second quip about minivans. The rear row is unsafe since there is hardly any trunk.
It’s more of a naming change. E.g. Tesla Model X is practically a minivan. It just won’t sell if you call it so.
Model X is no where near as spacious inside as a minivan. I have had a couple of Odyssey’s and they are much more spacious, particularly for the third row seating.
I eventually moved to an Electric Vehicle (Kia EV9) that is quite roomy, but still smaller than the minivan inside.
> Tesla Model X is practically a minivan.
At $80k to start, it's definitely not in the minivan price range.
Prices are a separate issue. Body style - it's right there.
Manufacturers went bananas with the body style naming and it's a shame that car journalist are not correcting them. I keep reading that Tesla Model 3 is a sedan and Model Y is a SUV...
In that world, sure, we won't have anything called a minivan.
Start calling things by what they are and it's solved: - Toyota Sienna - minvivan - Tesla Model X - minivan - Kia EV9 - minivan - Tesla Model Y - hatchback
And suddenly we're exactly where we were 20 years ago.
minivan == car chassis
suv == truck chassis
They're probably dying for the same reason cars are.
SUV is a poor term, nowadays it's largely used to refer to crossovers/CUVs, which have unibody car chassis and are really just station wagons with some extra clearance. The nomenclature may be a lost battle at this point, but the rise of CUVs (which are certainly cars, not body-on-frame trucks) is what killed minivans and sedans.
They are also station wagons with a smaller trunk
> is what killed minivans and sedans.
Sedans died years ago - pretty impractical body type. The only advantage over SW is a perceived "prestige".
Toyota Sienna == Toyota Highlander
It's all the exact same chassis, drive, suspension, pretty much you name it except the doors and body style. So that's not quite true...
> suv == truck chassis
What does that even mean? If you meant built on a frame, then sorry, but that's not in the SUVs DNA.
> They're probably dying for the same reason cars are.
Not sure where are you located - cars are doing great.
> If you meant built on a frame, then sorry, but that's not in the SUVs DNA.
It depends on the SUV. Part of the problem with online conversations about SUVs is that SUVs are a broad category and everyone fixates on whichever extreme of that broad category supports one's point the best. Hence: SUVs allegedly being big and bulky (i.e. describing the full-size SUV end of the spectrum) while simultaneously having small interiors and only two rows of seating (i.e. describing the CUV end of the spectrum).
Same deal here. It doesn't take an expert in automotive design to recognize that (using Toyota as an example) the 4-Runner, Highlander, and RAV-4 all fall in very different spots on the "Tacoma v. Camry" structural design spectrum.
USA
Yep. Ain't no better way demonstrating your deficiencies in wealth, status, and power than by making an extremely visible choice of "cheap, utilitarian, and unfashionable".
They should have named models for surfing beaches. The VW van used to be Valhalla-mobile for surfers.
I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
Neither can I, but if not it's a hell of a line. Really shows up how pathetic is society's slavery to the concept of "status symbols". Should I buy what does the job best for me personally? No, I'm supposed to follow the herd, otherwise it marks me out in a bad way.