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.
>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.
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.
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.
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".
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
>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.
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.
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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
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.
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".
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
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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Example that most markets are designed
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?
> 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
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.
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>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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://archive.is/RoCwU
https://archive.today/RoCwU
I hate reCAPTCHA.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240927122501/https://www.theat...
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).
could also be correlated to people having fewer kids?
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.
Beg my pardon but what high ground clearance is needed for?
Ironically, the pretense of an adventurous lifestyle.
Speed bumps and high curbs
Minivans are a rock bottom alternative to homelessness which is actually pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=living+in+a+min...
The 2025 Kia Carnival is trying hard to sneak the benefits of a minivan into something that can still pass for an SUV.
In Germany, the VW Minivan (“T models) were and still are iconic, and desirable. They are just very expensive.
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.
Give me a cute kei van. Honda NBox isn't cool, but it's not lame either.
"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.
> It is the least cool vehicle ever designed
VW Caravelle is pretty cool. Unlike SUVs.
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.
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 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".
> 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.
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.
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