Toyota Motor Corp. has five different SUVs that offer seating for seven, the cheapest of which goes about 24 miles on a gallon of gas.
However, the company’s minivan, dubbed Sienna, seats eight and travels 36 miles to a gallon; it costs about $1,000 less too.
One might call the SUV price premium a coolness tax, but lots of drivers are finding minivans – a genus of vehicle that is greener, cheaper and more spacious than so-called sport-utility machines – plenty cool in their own right.
Indeed, the much-maligned minivan is having a renaissance, as prices for both gas and swanky SUVs hover near historic highs.
US drivers bought 281,000 minivans this year through August, an 8% increase from the same period last year, even as total new vehicle sales declined, according to Edmunds.com, a data and car-shopping platform. And though the family trucksters represent just 3% of the US auto market, American drivers are buying as many minivans as large SUVs for the first time in almost a decade.
“The value proposition is unparalleled,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds. “There is no area in which the minivan underperforms an SUV unless you are going off-road. The minivan is going to come out ahead on space, mileage, price — you name it.”
Granted, there are plenty of hybrid SUVs on the market as well, but they tend to be less efficient, because they are engineered for off-road use with all-wheel drive and a less aerodynamic profile. A hybrid van is proving a no-brainer green option for both the EV-curious and EV-skeptical.