So over this weekend, three datapoints that made me think of this:
1. My parents, who have owned minivans (mostly Chryslers) since they were popularized in the mid-80s, opined that they want a new one to replace their 8-year-old (ish) Town&Country, but they really want to buy an EV next, since most of their usage is well within 200 miles of home and short trips. They don't want an SUV, they like the huge interior and low step-up height of minivans (they're getting older, but still like to buy antique furniture and haul stuff).
2. My wife, who really doesn't like her CX-9 as it's turned out to be a mediocre utility/people-hauler as a 3-row SUV with virtually no space for anything other than passengers. She wanted a minivan when we got the CX-9 and still wants one. And 98% of her driving is within 50 miles of home (and we have the Sequoia for long-haul full-family trips anyhow).
3. My cousin, who wants a new minivan because only the "huge" SUVs have enough space for her family/dog on road trips and she doesn't want a suburban/sequoia/etc.
Also, the local elementary school pickup line is FULL of late-model Odysseys, Pacificas, and Siennas these days - which used to be mostly crossovers 5 years ago, so maybe minivans are getting trendy again for the soccer-mom set that mostly does local driving. Sales figures don't seen to support this, but we know how quickly trends change and I think a lot of people are learning that crossovers/SUVs really kind of suck at most of the day-to-day family-hauling chores compared to minivans. Or are the manufacturers intentionally trying to kill off minivans because of higher margins on overpriced station wagons with big wheels?
ANYHOW....out of curiosity I browsed and found....nothign. No EV minivans out there now, or even talked about for the future. This doesn't seem to make a ton of sense to me - the minvan would seem to be ideal for batteries since FWD so no driveshaft tunnel, and they seem mostly be for suburban use, so single-charge distances. So what gives? why aren't any of the manufacturers doing EV minivans?
Theory:
The top three minivan companies would seem to be Honda, Toyota, and Chrysler. Honda is all-in on fuel-cell stuff it seems (which I think is a HUGE mistake, in my opinion), and seems to have missed the boat on EVs in general. Toyota has the tech but seems to want to stick with more hybrid stuff than pure EV from what I can tell. And Chrysler doesn't seem to be ready for EV yet other than throwing money into electric muscle cars or whatever (shocker). So maybe it's just that the companies that currently make minivans don't have the EV tech ready at this point, and the companies that are going all-in on EV tech (Euros, Ford, startups) generally don't currently make ICE minivans.
Anyhow, just a thought for discussion.
but they are loaded.
