Reimagining the Minivan: The Shocking Rise of the Fallen? 265
John dives into the topic of minivan sales and the potential for a revival in the market. The discontinuation of certain minivan models, such as the Ford Transit Connect and Nissan NV200, is discussed as is the increase in sales for the Chrysler Pacifica. Of course, everyone should know John's love of the minivan and he emphasizes the practicality and affordability of minivans, arguing that they are a better choice for transporting cargo and people compared to SUVs. He tried to avoid the topic but the potential impact of an upcoming market-changing electric minivans was touched upon.
00:00 John Are we going to talk EVs? No, we're not. Well, we talked the UAW strike. Everybody else's. You didn't come here to hear more about the UAW strike and non-Evergreen content. You want new stuff, stuff you can listen to any day. Whatever. Wait till you hear the largely mini topic that we dive into.
00:30 announcer Gloves are off. Welcome to the authority in car talk. No driving gloves. From exotics to hot rods to I'll get to it someday. Experience knowledge and controversy all right in the same suit. Buckle up and hang on for the ride. Now for your host of no driving gloves, John Fibiani.
01:00 John We're enjoying a fine day. The weather's turning. Getting to be some good car driving weather out there. And I thought we should talk about a subject that's passionate to me. Something that just gets every car guy. It just strikes a mood with every car person. We've talked about them before here on No Driving Gloves. And like I said in the intro, we're not going to talk EVs. We're going to talk a potentially new and upcoming segment in the automotive industry. We're going to talk about the minivan. How the sales have kind of contracted, but we're looking to see potentially an explosion. An article came across my desk, and this might be one vehicle that really lights up this segment. And OK, it's electric. But if it lights up this segment, there's a lot of other vehicles that, you know, jump to mind that this will affect. I can't believe some of the stuff that's happened in the minivan realm lately. The fact that Ford discontinued the Transit Connect, that Nissan discontinued the NV200. Mercedes, well, I can understand Mercedes discontinuing the Metris, great vehicle, just kind of way out of its price. Even the sales that the Ram Promaster City, it has lost some of its sales. And it's also on, you know, after 23, all of those vehicles are gone. And it doesn't make sense. You look at the numbers and they chop those and the sales transfer and the sales transfer. Yeah, they declined a little bit with covid. And yeah, there's the shipping logistics and you might want to consolidate the world. But Ford has one of the best on the pro level packages available in the F-150 and vehicles like that. And I think the the Transit Connect would lend well to even going to a hybrid or electric city delivery vehicle like it should. And you could bring in and bring some of the Ford software, pro software. But even looking at the minivans that are currently on the market in the U.S. sales, there has been a decline with some. There has been an increase with others. I mean, the Chrysler Pacifica 2021 to 2022, 23 percent increase in sales. 143% increase in market share. The Toyota Sienna, the Honda Odyssey, both have decreased in sales. The Toyota Sienna is probably one of the best minivans out there. But you have to look at pricing. And the Pacifica is still the affordable leader in this. It's a family buying this. And a married couple with two kids or three children Their budgets are limited, and going out and dropping $50,000 or $60,000 on a Sienna or an Odyssey is a stretch. But you can still get into a Pacifica in the 40s and mid-40s. I think the Pacifica actually, you know, its hybrid offering, while problematic in the beginning, has gotten better. It's a very practical minivan. Former guest host, Sean Yoder, he has Pacific outfitted for his business. My stepsister actually drives a Pacific. I still think the original caravan was the best design and, you know, technically Chrysler produced it up until, I think it was discontinued finally in early 21 as the Grand Caravan. You know, they actually sold a couple thousand, about 2,800 of them in 21, and 21 units in 22 because they're leftovers. I think that was a very efficient design while it was a clunky vehicle, and it didn't keep the agronomics up, possibly the bulbaceous curvature that the Odyssey, I don't know when the caravan the caravan lasted and it originally was a product from ford it was an iacocca design they wanted to build it at ford in the early 70s for some reason henry ford ii killed it probably because him and iacocca's relationship was so i don't know if i want to be a smart ass here or not but As we all know, by that point in time, Henry Ford was feeling pressure from Iacocca and they just did not see eye to eye. Iacocca lifted the design, dropped it in 84 and that's all she wrote. The station wagon was gone. The minivan existed and has slowly been replaced by the SUV. And I just don't understand for a segment that is about practicality and getting the most bang for your buck, why do you go out and buy, say, even a RAV4. Why do you go out and buy a Durango? Why do you go out and buy a Tahoe or a Blazer? When you're trying to transport cargo or people, a minivan is one of the most practical vehicles in the world. I have a friend who has more money than most of us will ever see, possibly combined. He can drive anything he wants. I mean, he does have a fabulous car collection, which he never drives. It's on display. But his vehicle of choice on a daily basis is a Honda Odyssey. Why? Because it rides very well. I mean, yeah, a Bentley's going to ride a little bit nicer, but five times, six times the price. And he can't put as many people in a Bentley. Even if he gets a Bentayga long wheelbase, really, that's only going to seat maybe five or six reverse facing jump seats. And Escalade's not going to work. It's going to be one and a half times the money, and to get anything that gets, and then people are crawling all over themselves to get into the third row where a Honda Odyssey, slide the doors open, step in, it comfortably will seat seven with a center aisle or a side aisle, however you configure the seats. If you need to move a refrigerator, seats fold nicely into the floor. Out of the way, slip the refrigerator in there. The Suburban, you're going to have to pull seats out, fold seats down, lift something two and a half feet, three feet into the air. And granted, a refrigerator might work well for that because it's tall, but then you've got to lower the thing. We're a minivan, 16, 18 inches off the ground. Nice and easy to slip things into. You lose a little bit of towing, but you can tow with most minivans. People don't think you can, but you know, Americans are, we've got to have the biggest, baddest 4,500 dually so that I can pull my six by 12 U-Haul trailer or my four by three landscape garden trailer. No, we don't need that for most people's use. The minivan will handle it. And be honest, the minivan doesn't need the trailer that often because of the size and practicality of it. You can get a lot of stuff into a minivan, whether it be people, whether it be equipment. We all know if you've listened to the show for a while, I'm a huge minivan fan. I've owned various vans and minivans. throughout my life. One of my most favorite vehicles was my Dodge 3500, or was it Dodge? I guess that would be a, is it a B3500 when it's a van, or is it a D3500? Well, whatever the massive, long, full-size van was like an 87 or an 88, he had more room in that than really, it wouldn't fit in my garage because the thing had more room inside the van than the garage did. And of course, I've went on to my full-size conversion, and I've had caravans and voyagers. I really, really regret selling my Transit Connect, especially that what's happened is the used market for these, when you get back into these commercial minivans, has just exploded because the reduced production, the reduced availability, I could sell my Transit Connect today with what I estimate the mileage I would have on it would be in the 80,000 to 90,000, possibly 100,000 mile range for more than what I paid for it when I bought it in 2000. That wouldn't be too bad. Drive a car for five years, put 100,000 miles on it and get all my money back and then maybe a little bit more. And it was just a wonderful vehicle. I mean, great, great gas mileage. I mean, to be honest, it's just a bigger Fiesta like I drive daily now. I might lose a couple of miles a gallon by having the Transit Connect, but believe me, I'd much prefer the room of the Connect over the little subcompact that I drive. Kind of for my nine to five job, you know, everything I do podcasting has to be a full time job anyway. But just like I said, looking at some of these numbers and sales slightly decrease, but they're decreasing in a segment that the dealerships don't stock the items. The prices went up tremendously on them because of availability and the advertising forum is non-existent. When's the last time you saw a Toyota Sienna advertised on TV? When's the last time you saw a Honda Odyssey? You know why? Because if they put them on and they put the features that minivans have, they're selling against themselves. If you put a Honda Odyssey and a Honda Pilot side by side, for practicality, the Odyssey blows it away just beyond anything. But even if, say, They kinda took the Odyssey and put it up against a RAV4, or a Highlander, or a Tahoe, or a Blazer, or a Durango, or a Bronco Sport. Hell, even a Bronco. A Bronco's gonna beat it on off-roading. A Bronco Sport might beat it on off-roading. You know, you get it. But when, like they say, when's the last time you really took any of this stuff off road? I mean, even Ford has omitted on the new Raptor are, you know, they've reduced their option packages and you can get, you know, kind of the Raptor and then the step up and then the Raptor are. And it's got these dual valve shocks. So it's good on compression and rebound, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they say it sounds really cool for off roading. But where does it help the most? On the street, right? Because they realize most of these Raptor are never, ever going to see a bit of dirt. You know, oh, they might run down the dirt lane. of your ranch, but I guess if you had a ranch, you probably actually off-road it. But where? The dirt parking lot at the state fair. Again, Raptor, R9, I'm just saying that they're aware that these SUVs and that are never going to see off-road. And going back, Honda makes this ad with the Odyssey and touts all of its features and its seat seven and the ease of the seats and the amount of room it has. They're selling against themselves. You know, the Pilot's one of their best-selling vehicles. And like I said, you can change the vehicle they're put in the ad. People are still going to be smart enough to go, hey, you know, that fan's a little bit better than an SUV. So when somebody goes to the Honda lot, what are they looking for? The Honda Odyssey and not even considering the Honda SUV. There's some of the reason behind it. I've complained about it for years. The Scion XA was a wonderful little vehicle. No, excuse me, the Scion IQ. It was a little three-seat smart car type thing. Toyota couldn't sell it. I talked to dealers about it. Oh, you've got to order it. Well, I want to drive it. Well, you've got to order it. Well, then I own it. Well, yeah, I've got to buy the thing so I can drive it to see if I like it to compare it with. Well, at least the Mercedes dealership stock their smart car and go to Ford, their Transit Connect passenger van or the Ford Transit Connect people. Lots of luck ever finding one of those when I was looking for my Transit Connect back in whatever it was, 18, 19. Never saw one on a lot. Never saw one. It was all commercial. And then, of course, I complained about it on the show. I had an issue when I went to finance it because Ford Credit said, well, he's not a business. This is a commercial vehicle. I want it as a personal vehicle. It's like I said, I always thought of my transit connect is like an s10 with a topper on it Nice small vehicle knock around town. Hell to me It's even be more practical than a ford maverick with a topper on it because again lower There's more cargo space if they would have sold a five Well, they did sell a five passenger short wheelbase one lots of luck finding that because it goes back to my complaint with the chevrolet quad steer pickups Dealerships don't advertise it. They get it used or they have it on their lot. They don't push that one. It's something you probably if you really wanted it, you got to order brand new and it'll eventually arrive, etc. I just don't I don't understand the manufacturers thinking on this. And I'm doing this show asking why. And I'm doing this show because there's a manufacturer out there that's like I said, gonna break the segment open again. It's gonna draw attention to it. I guess we're gonna talk a little EV, because it is an EV, so it'll make some news in the EV world. It'll be one of the most practical EVs out there. To hell with your Rivian R1T or your R1S and to hell with your Tesla Cybertruck. Big, practical, lots of room. Kind of iconic styling. Has been teased to the market for 22 years. You have the tall seating position. The ground clearance is more like a car. It's easier to step into. Rocker heights are lower. Entry and exits easier. Same for loading. And we're really, I think we're gonna really see a game of catch-up. Except maybe in Chrysler's case, because they have the Pacifica Hybrid, it wouldn't be that difficult to really modify it, modify it, modify it. But the new Volkswagen ID, the little minivan that they're coming out with, that they originally showed, I believe in 2001 or 2002 at the auto shows and that, and everybody harken back to the old VW bus of the 60s and the nostalgia it brought. And while they took away some of those styling cues, guess what? It's still a flat front box. It's a box with wheels on it. It has batteries in it that take up the whole floor, which now has actually made it a safer vehicle because all of the weight is at the bottom of the vehicle. It has a less chance of you know, rollover, like, you know, vans really didn't rollover in the first place, but it reduces the chances of rollover. It's a very well-designed vehicle that the interior is thought out and is flexible and is modular. And you can adjust, you can adjust just about everything inside of it. Because it is this flat front vehicle, they do sit the driver way, you know, back farther because It doesn't matter if there if you get into an accident and as much accident absorbing, it's still going to crush. But they have to put the driver a little bit farther back for the safety. And that can make some people uneasy because, you know, you can probably Superman in this van and not touch the windshield. But I think this Volkswagen is going to just wake a lot of people. People are going to love it. It's going to come out. People are going to jump to it in droves because of the design and it's it's electric, so it's the new cool thing. I mean, 25% of automobile sales in California are electric now. We're 7% nationwide, and they said the tipping point is 5%. Now, won't it be interesting that the potential death knell to the internal combustion engine could be a electric minivan as people get in it, start using it, driving it, finding out that, hey, this space is great, and then showing it to their friends and their friends are going, wow, look at this space, look at the space, look at the practicality, look at how well this thing drives. They sell this van and they've been selling it for a few years, talking about the Volkswagen ID, in Europe for two or three years now. Unfortunately, or no, unfortunately to me, or unfortunately to us, they sell it as a two row van. And it's a little bit shorter wheelbase, which is kind of nice. In the U.S., we're going to get the longer version that has three row seating. But we want space. We want room for our people. But we also get a little bit more room for a battery. So the battery becomes bigger. I still think a whole nother episode. I think hybrids are the way to go with a battery and an electric motor. This van's really gonna break the world open for us. Those of us that enjoy the minivan, this thing's gonna be revolutionary. It's gonna wake everybody up. The nice thing about this van from Volkswagen, the ID, is it's not a retro car like the old T-Bird or the iconic Beetle and Beetle and Beetle. uh it's it hints at it just hints at it but again we're designing a van it's a box on four wheels there's not a lot you could for it but it has a lot of modern modern design i haven't seen a picture of it with the front doors open But it even looks like it potentially, it leans to look like it even has suicide. I doubt it, especially with the way the wheels are designed. This thing could just really, really change the world of minivans. And then to add to that, the Sienna is a great minivan. And we have to do some things to differentiate. I heard an interview recently with Jim Farley that said the difference between, he didn't actually use manufacturers, but I'm going The difference between Toyota and Lexus is a little bit better fit and finish or a little bit better quality of materials on the interior, a little bit better software. Maybe it's a 3.3 liter instead of a 3 liter motor. So you get a little bump in horsepower. And the net cost to the manufacturer is $4,000 or $5,000. The net cost to the consumer is $10,000 to $15,000 because it makes it all feel more luxurious. When you get into an electric vehicle, it's all software. You don't get some of that availability for bumps. So Lexus is introducing a hybrid electric Lexus minivan. Right now it's available only in Asian Europe called the OLM. And it's a seven seater and it can be also configured as a four seater, as a chauffeur driven minivan. And brilliant idea, because if we look at the full size segment and the Mercedes Sprinter vans, How many of those are getting converted into mobile offices? But they're big, they're massive. You do that with a minivan. And this Lexus LM with the seven seater variant that's convert, you know, actually a four seater version for executive, chauffeur driven, whatever. It's the same size as a Sienna. So now you can fit in parking decks. You can't stand up and walk around, but you could have a desk in there. You could do all your office stuff, just a little bit smaller scale. But now you're in a hybrid, your gas mileage is there, your parking ability there, your maneuverability is there. This is a, to me again, another, you know, excuse me, brilliant, brilliant idea, you know, coming to market. I'm really of the mindset and hope that this Volkswagen ID is going to help this segment so much. Everybody's going to want the Volkswagen. There's no doubt about it. But there's always going to be the trickle down is like I said, people are going to get, you know, people are going to buy it. It's going to draw attention. People are going to crawl through it in auto show. And then they're going to realize, well, maybe I can't. take the wait time for the Volkswagen. Maybe I don't want the all electric. Maybe I don't, you know, they're not into the styling. They're these people that love to drive...
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