Darnit. I saw Grand Caravan and thought it was an all-electric minivan.
I've been waiting years for an electric minivan. The moment someone comes out with one, I'm turning in my current minivan, which I love, for an all electric van.
Chrysler sells Pacifica Hybrid (which is actually a plug in hybrid, so pretty close to all electric in every day situations). 2021 Toyota Sienna is also going to be a hybrid (but not a plug in).
There is certainly a point for most people to use a plug-in hybrid if the price is not too high. Most trips are short. You only take long trips a few times a year. (or maybe a few times a month if you drive a lot, but that still equals most trips being short). Thus you have "infinite range" via the petrol engine and the vast majority of trips are all electric. This makes total sense.
If you're already getting a new car, it makes sense to get a hybrid. But it doesn't make sense to replace a working car to get a hybrid. It barely makes sense to replace a working car to get an all electric, but it makes sense if you have solar.
A lot of plug in hybrids have an incredibly short range. It’s not a bad idea, but many of the implications are due to fleet requirements not customer demand so they end up with sub 20 mile ranges when new and that drops quickly due the large number of charge / discharge cycles.
> I've been waiting years for an electric minivan. The moment someone comes out with one, I'm turning in my current minivan, which I love, for an all electric van.
The Dodge Grand Caravan and the Chrysler Town and Country were the same vehicle with badge engineering. The Town and Country was replaced by the Chysler Pacifica in model year 2017, but they kept making the Caravans on the old design with Dodge branding for cost concious buyers. In model year 2020, (Fiat) Chrysler is renaming the low end Pacifica models to Chrysler Voyager --- it could easily have been called a Dodge, but I guess they're trying to clean up Dodge to be muscle cars and trucks, like Ford is trying to do with their line up.
The Grand Caravan interior was from 2005. It was showing its age. Also why make a minivan that sells around 30k when you can make an SUV that sells for 50k. It makes me sad but that is capitalism for ya.
The model X is more expensive, but it’s not $100K more than a new Honda Odyssey. Heck, it’s not $100K more than your current Odssey! The X starts at $80k, while the Oddysey costs somewhere between $30k and $45k.
It’s only the top of the line performance trim that costs $100K.
I don't know about the US, but here in the UK, the word "caravan" does have negative connotations for a lot of people. It conjures images of ungainly and flimsy caravans pulled by cars [0]
Ford is launching an electric Transit at the end of 2021 ('22 models.) We have a larger family, so we're hopeful the range, power and cost will be acceptable. Swapping out low MPG large commercial and passenger vans for electric will prevent a lot of gasoline and diesel usage.
Supposedly it will have a US launch in a couple of years. We are disadvantaged against the Transit’s relative popularity in Europe, though, so it’s possible they will not see it through.
It's not just "popularity" - EU govt is subsidizing EVs big-time (tax breaks) to where all available EV capacity is going to Europe for many car manufacturers.
I've been waiting years for an electric minivan. The moment someone comes out with one, I'm turning in my current minivan, which I love, for an all electric van.