If it's so big maybe you shouldn't drive across it so much

People want to visit family, go interesting places and live their lives.

Any solution that requires people to live like it's the 1500s is probably a nonstarter.

Besides, modern engines get pretty incredible gas efficiency on the highway. A lot of the minivans these days run a 10-speed automatic with a well-tuned V6, netting nearly 300bhp and pushing 30 mpg on the Interstate.

The occasional family road trip shouldn't be a cause for disdain, families with children shouldn't be shunned for wanting to travel and enjoy the various things their region has to offer.

Agreed, especially if those people are my grand grandchildren, its my responsibility. And if I need to live in the 70s for some aspects of my life well so be it.

I don't want future generations role-playing Fallout. So I try my best to reduce the emissions. Bike, have less and smaller cars.

Its not the middle ages and you still can have a quality life.

People took a lot of road trips in the 70s...probably in a fairly inefficient station wagon.

Exactly my point, it was not the middle ages, and yet: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/trfvolusm227nfwa (better if those are done is less polluting vehicles) and in the country of cars, other countries were not living on dirt roads

80% of people in manhattan have no personal vehicle and I would not say they are "living like it's the 1500s". The problem is that most of America has car-dependent infrastructure.

I'm not sure a minivan even counts as a huge car any longer. :)

Remember Station Wagons?

It's mad that the US forgot about those. I drive an estate with a sportspack - it's no sports car, but it handles nicely; it has low drag, so it sips fuel on the motorway; and it carries more than a 4x4 because the load space is a better shape. Between the car and the trailer, I've hauled a metric tonne. Every third car around here used to be an estate, until the shitty crossovers invaded and destroyed all the advantages.

I once put the back seats down in my station wagon and loaded 0.75T of soil in 40lb bags. My suspension didn't like that, but the car did just fine.

I would definitely consider a modern version of those big wood paneled ones

In Europe we still have station wagons. They are better than SUVs and these stupid american trucks in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Those American trucks are an emblem of freedom and sovereignty! /s

I chuckle at the weird and ridiculous things people do with their trucks. The lift kits, and the widening, and the heee-yuge tires. I cannot imagine what kind of mileage they make.

They're also the first people to complain about gas prices and vandalize gas pumps with Biden stickers.

I like the Biden stickers. :D Shutting down the pipeline out of Canada during his first week in office and promising to be hard on oil companies made all the oil related businesses go into turtle mode. It's basic cause and effect.

I often wonder how construction gets done in Europe. Everyone in the US who works construction or even has the possibility of maybe one day needing to carry a shovel claims they absolutely must drive a truck with a 3-ton curb weight everywhere they go. How does Europe build anything, without these massive trucks everywhere?

Here's what they drive: https://www.byggnadsarbetaren.se/test/har-ar-bilarna-som-vis...

Seems like these weigh 1.8-2.0 tons

Anecdotally I think it's much more common for people in the US to do some work on their house by themselves than in the EU.

Even if that’s true, it’s an absurd reason to own a truck.

Any option of the following:

  Truck rentals,
  At-home delivery of building materials and hardware,
  Actual trucks with drivers licensed for trucking,
  Using a car with fold-down back seats

I realize you're being sarcastic, but taking this a bit seriously: I feel like a minority of "serious working professionals" (in my area, Seattle) ever actually drive "consumer pick-ups" as their working vehicle. The majority of tradespeople I've known all drive vans or specialized trucks, not consumer pickup trucks. It seems to be several reasons:

- Few tradespeople are moving large loads of loose material or goods around e.g. debris or lawnmowers. If you do move dirt or lawnmowers around regularly, you're not buying a consumer Ford F150 for the purpose, you're going to buy something like an F250 with what's called a "work body" or "landscape body" (hilariously, strongly implying an off-the-shelf F250 is not equipped for work): https://cmtruckbeds.com/truck-beds/lb-landscape-body/

- A fully enclosed van means less risk of casual stealing, and less concern for tying down every little thing during transport

- Vans are generally a bit narrower than the big trucks so you can squeeze them into the strange city job sites much easier.

- They don't have to worry about protecting their cargo from the elements

- If you get the right van, you can stand up inside that van

- A van is going to have a pretty low floor that you can generally step into and out of. A large pickup you may need to literally climb into. A tradesperson is going to have to do that like 10+ times a day

It always seems like the foreman or project manager is the one you see driving the pickup truck, all the other working stiffs choose vans though.

I'm a European living in Greece, I drive a 2009 Suzuki Swift and have a wife and kid. It's a bit of a challenge to set it up to go for a trip on our island house during summer, and I seldom do any construction work more than simple stuff around the houses. But it is super easy to park around, has OK mileage, and the ferry ticket is cheaper than a big car and it is OK to park. It has a laughable boot, but if you fold the passenger seats it can be useful to move some bigger stuff.

There are trucks in Greece, just not that many twin cabs, mostly you will see them outside the city in the country.

Construction workers use mostly vans, and flatbed versions of vans (Like the ford transit) also called cab-over pick-up trucks. There are lots of small light cab-over trucks in the islands by Piaggio and Daihatsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck#/media/File:PiaggioTruck... which are pretty hand and often provide a pretty big flatbed for stuff. There are some construction workers like electricians, plumbers etc that love to use panel vans or their passenger versions using folded seats like the Fiat Doblo (Similar to the Ram Promaster City).

We are actually thinking of buying a mild-hybrid version of the passenger version of a panel-van to cover our family needs.

Trucks are not stupid, they can tow. I don't want to be a european pod dweller, I want to have an RV, a boat and get the most of my life.

You do know that Europeans also have a ton of trailers, RVs and boats? Maybe ask yourself how we managed to do it?

Parts of Europe actually have more reasonable towing regulation, for example, in Europe, my VW GTI can legally tow a thousand pounds or so, but does not have a recognized towing capability in the US system.

Do you have any data to support your claims?

I couldn't own a basic car, let alone an RV, when I was living in Stockholm. I was trying to figure out if I could buy a large enough trailer for my bicycle to transport my inflatible boat somewhere (and there are basically no public boat launches!), I couldn't dream of RV, it seems those things are only for very wealthy people in Europe.

Now I own a normal 18 foot boat with a trailer and an RV camper even though I work in the same field. My life quality significantly improved since I moved to the U.S and I will never look back.

Looking at Sweden and thinking it represents Europe is like looking at Utah and thinking it represents the whole US.

There are many factors. The minivan itself is dying, and it's almost a "perfect" car for many use cases - can hold 8, can get car-like mileage, can hold as much as an SUV, is easier to get into.

But they're dying because people ain't buying, because the costs are so high and those with the money to buy new vehicles don't like them.

There is NOTHING preventing small SUVs that hold 5 people and cargo, get really good mileage, and are cheap(ish) - but they don't exist used because they don't exist new.

(It's sad, because I'm buying a new minivan, and I could not make the PHEV Pacifica make sense no matter how I finagled the financial numbers, the Sienna is simply unavailable at reasonable trim levels, and nobody makes an EV minivan.)

> There is NOTHING preventing small SUVs that hold 5 people and cargo, get really good mileage, and are cheap(ish)

Like the RAV-4 Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid & Plug-in Hybrid, etc., yes.

> but they don't exist used because they don't exist new.

Except they do exist, both new and used.

Yeah and a new RAV-4 delivery date is 2-3 YEARS after you put a deposit down and the used market is in a stranglehold by the dealerships.

Most carmakers don't sell most of their new cars on the order it and it shows up model. They send to dealers and you buy them. Our local dealer has 2 on the lot right now. I live in a small city surrounded by much larger ones. We don't have some exceptional line on new Toyotas.

Have you gone in to buy one? They often show as "available" on the website but have been spoken for months/years ago.

I was in line for a Sienna for 20 months before I finally bailed.

I drive by the dealer everyday. 2 currently there. Personally, I've found dealers don't honor lines. One salesman told me that when they got the car I was looking for in stock they start calling people and the first person to physically show up AND sign the sales papers gets it. I ordered a Tesla after that experience.

Yeah, dealers are notorious for "whatever gets me my cash".

You could find those RAV4s here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12fx6j51iiA7q1Wm3keDu... (or the hybrid or prime) if you were bored.

Often the manufacturers allocate vehicles to dealers on somewhat of a random lottery, so if you need one fast you're often best traveling to the dealer that's as far away from a big city as possible.

> There is NOTHING preventing small SUVs that hold 5 people and cargo, get really good mileage, and are cheap(ish) - but they don't exist used because they don't exist new.

How much cargo you want? I think the mid-size sector favorites (CR-V, RAV4, etc.) come pretty close to this, especially if you are willing to use a cargo box.

The RAV4 looks big to me (almost minivan sized?) - but I see it's shorter than the Camry at least.

I'm thinking of something more akin to the old hatchbacks, but that may be getting close.

(Comparing the RAV4 to the Camry really shows the Camry's weaknesses, it's a bigger car with less room).

Both are IIUC substantially smaller than the typical minivan, and the recent CR-V redesign especially looks bigger than it is. Honda also has the HR-V, which is a smaller crossover thing with much stronger classic hatchback vibes; not sure if Toyota sells anything similar.

VW is coming out with the EV. Honda and Toyota are the only minivans worth buying, but good luck finding anything.

Kia's coming in fast and is what we went with. Everyone's promising hybrid and EV but that doesn't help when the baby arrives sooner than the vehicle can ship.

Honda's really dated now and needs a strong refresh. Toyota's king of the market and it shows they know, I wish someone would light a fire under them a bit.

How about the VW Id Buzz?

The VW Multivan Hybrid is great! The electric range is quite small (60km I think?) compared to a full EV but still sufficient for some daily trips. And smaller batteries charges fast.

It's hard to load the kids into a render :D

Once it's available, that might be very nice.

I was supremely disappointed that the Transit full-size van is NOT available in passenger in the EV version. Might have almost stretched the budget for that.

I'm quite interested in looking at this when it comes out in the US. Not sure I want a car payment but I'll take a look. It looks fun

"There is NOTHING preventing small SUVs that hold 5 people and cargo, get really good mileage, and are cheap(ish) - but they don't exist used because they don't exist new."

I have a chevy silverado with a crew cab. I put my 6 family members in it regularly. I get 20-25mpg on the highway because the engine shuts down 4 cylinders when I'm cruising. I have had hondas, toyotas, BMWs and I have to say in my opinion, american full-size trucks are the greatest cars on the road today in terms of trading-off size, efficiency, reliability, range, price (maybe not now) etc. I never thought of myself as a "truck guy" until I got one. Its a hard pill for many to swallow.

20-25 miles highway is absolutely appalling. Like shockingly terrible. A conventional ICE minivan would get 10-15 extra mpg with additional room for passengers, and would cost less. A reasonably sized hybrid would easily get double the mileage.

In my opinion, full size trucks are the absolute worst vehicles on the road in terms of those trade offs. You get pitiful gas mileage, a tiny cab, high prices, and the thing is absolutely massive despite most folks only generally using a tiny portion of it at a time.

IMO the only justifiable reason to drive a pickup is if you tow or carry extremely volumes of stuff on a near daily basis.

I'm not sure what ICE minivans you're thinking of, except maybe the Sienna?

> The Carnival matched its EPA combined rating during its stay with us, averaging 22 mpg. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a38417315/2022-kia-carn...

> No matter which trim you select, the 2023 Honda Odyssey mpg will be 19 city/28 highway/22 combined.

These are not 10-15 extra. Maybe 5-10 extra. The Sienna might pull 15 extra.

I sure am glad no one needs to justify their car purchases by you. Daily use of a pickup with extreme volumes sounds like an unreasonable high bar for justification. What if it was every other day?

Yea, I also carry stuff in the bed alot of times.

I don't need extra room for passengers, I need extra room for other stuff, lumber, pipes, etc. I've had a van before, and I think the tradeoffs are better in terms of the truck. Not all folks that have trucks are soccer moms that use it to drop off the kids like you think.

The truck market in the USA is pretty darn competitive, and people don't buy them because of "penis issues" as many seem to think. If they sold the six door version, I might go with one, but you can't load tiny kids in the front bench. https://www.kingseriespickup.com is a bit beyond me :D

They're damn usable vehicles, especially if you consider the entire market from the Maverick up to the super-duty.

Someone should do the math on the environmental aspects of one largish vehicle for a family vs a largish + smaller (e.g, when does the fuel savings of the smaller finally out run the cost of acquiring said smaller).

Minivans are mostly dying because the designs all look like they came from junior designers who hope to one day grow up and work on a real car. Not that it's their fault. They manufacture these things on set platforms and none of them do any justice to the shape of the vehicle.

They're half-heartedly trying - the Kia Carnival kind of looks like an SUV from a decent distance.

The Toyota Highlander is just a minivan with SUV doors.

I got my Sienna about 3 years ago. 21k miles and paid $20k cash for it. It's got 40k miles now but seems like it's easily going to cruise for another 125k miles. I'll drive it until the kids are done with school so probably another 7 years. I work from home and the kids school is 3 blocks away so only real driving is to vacations.

Besides the "cool factor" it's really the perfect vehicle.

You got it at the perfect time, now they're impossible to find and cost $60k if you DO find one available.

yup, I really hit the jackpot on that. Timing wise, it cost me ~5k on my trade in but it was well worth it in the long run.

To the extent that large SUVs were a thing in the early 2000s, perhaps, but the US isn't bigger than twenty years ago, yet our cars are.

Emissions standards changed in a way that benefits larger vehicles, and the size of cars exploded.

Funnily enough, actual seating capacity maxes out in the minivan class and all the bloated SUVs out there walk that metric back.

SUVs are purely about status and, for many people I've asked, a feeling of greater security at high speed on secondary roads from being higher off the ground. It's pretty problematic that people seek out a vehicle specifically so they can falsely feel more secure driving in a less-safe manner.

Many roads in rural areas are unimproved and the extra clearance is a necessity. Towing moderately heavy stuff like boats also work better with the higher frame of an suv. So, about the same internal size plus these benefits makes it the best choice for me. Mine is 20 years old though, so I suppose I’m in negative status territory.

While that’s true, a relatively small portion of Americans live in an area where that’s a serious concern. Yet go to any suburb and you’ll see huge numbers of SUVs.

Once upon a time I lived in the suburbs, but on the weekend I’d head up to the north woods and need the clearance and towing ability. Hard to understand someone’s use case unless you know them and their lifestyle.

Near-zero chance of SUVs in my city being used for towing or on unimproved roads. We must live different places. Like the difference between a Hummer in NYC on the one hand, and in War Zone XYZ. Different contexts.

Funny enough, the modern consumer Hummers were built on Chevy Suburban chassis for a long time. I have no clue what they're using now, but for the H2 (and I think the H3?) its just an uglier suburban.

I've considered one of the heavier duty Sprinter style vans. Good towing capacity. All the cargo space you'd ever need, all the seating you'd ever need. Does it look as good as a new Dodge Ram? No, not really. But it has way more utility.

SUVs usually also have less cargo space than minivans. SUVs are a worse choice in almost all situations.

>Wonder how much of this is just due to how massive the us is

It has nothing to do with this. The US was settled, and most cities were developed before the introduction of the automobile. It's just that after WWII we bulldozed most of the country for highways and decided that cars were the only way to move around.

> most of the country

I invite you to visit N. Montana or either of the Dakotas, or that stretch of highway in Nebraska that seems to go in a straight line for several hundred miles.

Why is the Montana strawman always an example here? Almost no one lives in Montana and no one cares about vehical sizes in Montana, except _maybe_ in Bozeman proper. Let it go, no one is talking about Montana or the Dakotas.

I figured the statement "most of the country" applied to most of the country. If we mean "the most population dense parts of the country" I'd gladly concede the point.

Most of the population density of the country doesn't live in dense areas either.

> most of the country

The negative effects of vehicle size and dependence on infrastructure and society are intimately tied to where people live.

> Urban areas make up only 3 percent of the entire land area of the country but are home to more than 80 percent of the population.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america....

The issue isn’t with people owning big vehicles in rural area… it’s that we’ve built out _urban_ environments for cars instead of for people.

I live in the Dakotas, specifically in a town that was, get this, founded as a railway town. The towns and cities here are actually smaller than in other parts of the country because we have more of our prewar infrastructure.

If you need a bigger 3-row vehicle for carrying people, a minivan is by far the most reasonable choice since they tend to have good visibility and crash-compatibility with other vehicles. Low hood height also means they can have pedestrian safety features that are impossible to implement on e.g. pickups with 5+ foot hood heights.

A minivan is a lot better for society than an SUV! It's a far more efficient use of space and weight, and isn't unnecessarily lifted so your visibility is better and your vehicle is less dangerous in a pedestrian collision.

You have a practical vehicle for your situation and location. We would all be better off if a lot of urban/suburban SUV purchases were minivan purchases instead - like they were 20 years ago, and like your more recent purchase was.