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Comment by irateswami | Hacker News Reader

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage that any nuclear family would have to tote around, plus a stroller and it becomes prohibitively tight.

It took me MONTHS of shopping and playing child-seat-jenga in various car dealership lots before I finally found a sedan that was actually able to hold everything (thank you, Volkswagen, for making an actual family sedan that could fit a family!).

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I replaced my 3-series BMW with a Honda Odyssey, and I've spent two years singing its praises. Part of the problem is that we have created a culture that uses cars as a form of self expression, and many early parents aren't ready to "be" a minivan. But the minivan is what you actually want as a parent: room for six people of any size, or four people and at least twice as much cargo as an SUV, with safe, remote control doors that can be operated by kids. It's a living room on wheels, including the TV.

Honda is trying to bridge the identify gap a little with paddle shifting, ventilated seats, and almost 300hp, but really we should try to step back from seeing the car as an expression of who we are, and try to optimize for the functionality that we use every day. As much fun as it was to drive the BMW, finding a way to fit my growing family into it was a stressful mess and I'm happy to have found, perhaps unintentionally, a much better situation.

Some of this insight came to me from Steve Kaufer of TripAdvisor, who at the time I was there was running a $4B company and driving an old minivan, because that's what his family fit in. He never cared for a fancy new car because fancy meant small and he wasn't out to impress anyone on the road anyway.

But I also can't pretend that Honda's naturally aspirated 6-cylinder and perfectly matched 10-speed (domestic!) paddle shifter didn't help seal the deal in my garage.

I own a Porsche 911, a Mercedes GL 550, and a Toyota Sienna XLE. I like cars. However, one of my best friends never told me he was going to the annual car show, despite the fact that we often have lunch together. When I asked why he said it was because I had mentioned that I think the minivan is a peak of automotive greatness. He comes from the Detroit area, and literally assumed I didn’t care about cars simply because I like minivans!

Also, I may be a bit on the spectrum because I simply do not think about cars as a means of self expression. I don’t spend $120,000 on a car because I think it would impress somebody. I am a lousy mind reader and have no idea what people would think about what I drive, nor do I judge people on what they drive. That is bizarre to me.

Don’t leave us hanging. Why is the minivan peak of automotive greatness, particularly in comparison to the other cars you mentioned. I would surly think a 911 is a much superior machine.

They way I see it, a 911 (or any sports car, really) is for when you want to drive for the sake of driving. In any other use case, it is an impractical compromise, because it was built for a specific purpose. The 911 may even be the most practical sports car, others are much less usable day-to-day. If you choose to daily drive a Porsche, you choose a specific compromise. For driving fast and giving you that fizz of being in control of a powerful machine, obviously it's superior to a minivan, because that's what it was designed to do.

You can certainly drive yourself and one other person on a weekend trip in a 911, no doubt. Anything beyond that quickly becomes a hassle, unless you go for a roof rack or a roof box, which is not ideal. It makes the car top-heavy and is not nearly as secure as packing things inside the car. There is also the issue of suspension travel and ground clearance, again the 911 is better and more comfortable than a lot of other sports cars in this respect, but it is still quite firm and has low ground clearance.

A minivan carries more people in comfort, holds more luggage inside the car hidden from prying eyes, it has better gas mileage and it is cheaper to purchase and service. It does vastly more things better than a 911, which only does a few things exceptionally well.

Personally, I would rather drive a minivan with my friends and our gear to a cabin far in the woods for a week or two of vacation, than I would take a 911 for a drive on public roads or a track day. The minivan is better at the things most people want/need.

Unfortunately, they have been swayed towards SUVs and trucks and sports cars by marketing.

Easily the most practical car since the Model T. For sheer pleasure driving, of course the 911. But a minivan can carry a big family or you can drop the back seats and slot in a stack of 4x8 plywood sheets without a sweat while keeping them covered, which most pickups can’t handle too well anymore. The high end models have ridiculously comfortable seats. You can camp in a minivan. They’re smooth and quiet to drive. They cost little to maintain. In Toyotas, at least, the leather seats are nearly indestructible and barely take on dirt. The remote operated side doors and elevated floors make getting babies into the car seats a doddle. Tall people fit fine. Moms feel safer driving high. They come with 110v outlets. (The vans, not the moms.) They are easily the most versatile cars on the road. Nothing else comes remotely close.

When my wife and I were discussing whether to have a third kid, the "we can justify a minivan now" argument was a big push in favor!

If you think it's uncool, just remember -- if you buy a sports car, there is always someone out there with a cooler sports car. But you can buy THE BEST minivan in the world for ~$40k. Minivans also tend to go heavy on tech and comfort features relative to their price point. Yes, they suck to parallel park in the city, but 360 cameras and ultrasonics have made that much easier than it used to be. Really recommended!

My problem with minivans (as opposed to good sports cars) is that they drive like crap. I have never encountered (or heard of) a van that drove well with one exception [1]

[1] I remember reading about a volkswagen bus that had been modified heavily with Porsche components to the point it could drive and accelerate better than any van had a right to.

My parents had a '68 VW bus. Sorry, it was a death trap. I have no idea how we survived several trips across the US in it.

1. no seat belts in the back, no headrests

2. poor brakes (especially if you were seduced by the size of the cargo area and loaded a bunch of weight in it)

3. inadequate power (could barely to 65)

4. would tip over if turned too sharply

5. don't even think about hitting anything head on, just a bit of sheetmetal there

6. highly susceptible to cross-winds

On the plus side, it was inexpensive to maintain and ran for decades. I finally sold it for my dad, and he asked me if I was nostalgic for it. I said no, I was just happy we never had an accident in it. My dad gets the credit for that, he was an unusually careful driver. Never hit anything in 70 years of driving.

I know times have changed, and what was acceptable in the 60's wrt car safety has changed a lot, but still...

Have you driven a recent one? It's not hard to get a test drive. Try holding the Odyssey over 6000 rpm in sport-manual and see if it's a boring van.

Odyssey is pretty good. Have you tried it?

Minivans drive perfectly well, beyond the limits of what is responsible on a public road. The point of a minivan is everyday practicality, not lap times.

If you want to drive something that drives like a sports car, get a sports car for the weekends.

The Alphard V6 really isn’t that bad to drive. We’re not talking Porsche of course (and why would we? Topic is carrying kids safely), but it is a really pleasant drive.

I had a VW Vanagon and thought it handled well. Nearly perfect 50:50 weight distribution on front and rear wheels and a super tight turning radius. That thing could do a U-turn on a two-lane road. Power was pretty pathetic though. It would do 70mph, maybe 72 on the highway.

I find it interesting just how much cars are part of certain cultures. Living in Tokyo of my hundreds of acquaintances I think I know 3 that own a car. Family or no. I know that's not possible in many places though I kind of wish it was more common.

I know 3 immediate family/ relatives who have a car in Tokyo (all are living the 23). My wife’s cousin even has a nice old school Cadillac Escalade he imported from the US (it’s American style left hand drive). That said he likes cars and motorcycles, he’s also a bus driver to Seibu. I’m always impressed by the skill it takes to drive a bus around Tokyo.

I find renting a car in Tokyo super easy. It enables so many things like small day trips. We got one last week to go to the zoo. Often it’s easier to rent a car than take the train to Saitama. So even when you don’t own a car it’s still very accessible and affordable.

Per the article, minivans kinda suck in the US. Japanese ones are much cooler. I think there wouldn’t be as much minivan stigma in the US of Japan exported some of those designs.

Once you get out of the bigger cities, having a car is basically expected in the rest of Japan - layout and planning of smaller cities reflect this a lot. Car ownership can be really cheap as well - parking space is a major cost factor in Tokyo.

Not meaning to counter your point, just pointing out that there are some significant culture differences between metropolises/smaller cities/countryside within the same country

I recommend an aftermarket trailer hitch as well for the minivan. Our last vacation we fit 2, adults, 2 kids, our dog in his full sized crate, all of our luggage, and 4 bicycles on a hitch rack. Pretty sweet!

Im all about the minivan, and completely agree with everything you're saying here. Ive been getting my wife prepped for one when the time comes, and i think shes come around to see how much they just make sense. Also doesnt hurt that a few friends actually expressed their regret going suv over the van.

Your instincts are good. I have a top-of-the-line SUV that cost three times what my top-of-the-line minivan did, and the minivan smokes it in most ways (driving performance excepted). If I had to choose between the two I would take the minivan any day of the week, though I’d miss the extra hundred horsepower going up the hill to my house.

> It's a living room on wheels, including the TV.

I remain bemused at the idea a tv is a necessity for family car journeys. I would not want one in anything I was driving.

Our minivan came with one and we've literally never used it. After a while the kids stop asking. I think we keep a dvd in the van in case we're stuck somewhere with nothing to do but it's never come up.

Twice as much cargo as an SUV? We have both a minivan (Toyota sienna) and an SUV (Chevy Suburban) and the SUV easily has quadruple the cargo space as the minivan.

A Suburban is a "full size SUV", which weighs, drives, and has the fuel economy of a truck. Minivans are closer in size, weight, fuel economy, and cost to the car derived "mid size SUVs", but they have much more cargo space. Still, the Odyssey claims roughly the same amount of "maximum interior cargo volume" as the Suburban, and almost twice that of the "most popular SUV", the midsize Ford Explorer. It's highly optimized for providing interior space: where the spare tire should be is a deep tub for cargo or to hold the folded down rear seats. The actual spare tire is located in the second row footwell, though you could never tell.

Can you move an upright piano in it?

The thing that finally turned me off to SUVs was when I managed to find an upright piano for $200, and none of my friends with SUVs could help me move it -- I ended up borrowing my mom's minivan (with the seats taken out). At that point I decided that sure, an SUV looks more "manly", but I'd rather have a vehicle that can actually get the job done.

This is true. We used to take horses (miniature horses, but horses) in our minivan. They wouldn’t have been able to stand upright in our suburban. We got some really odd stares when people would see a horse with its head between the drivers and passengers seats, looking out the windshield.

Been there, done that in my Sienna!

Sienna 33.5 ft³, 101 ft³ seats down

Suburban 41.5 ft³, 144.7 ft³

Suburban is almost 2 feet longer.

What year Sienna? Ours is from 2000 and is tiny compared to modern Siennas.

We ended up buying Diono Radian carseats [1], which are marketed as "the 3-across car seat"

We can fit our three kids in the back of our Honda Civic perfectly well.

But we've had exactly the same conversation. In order to have a fourth kid, we'd need to swap out our vehicles. House is fine, insurance is fine, income is fine, but we'd need to upgrade vehicles, and that seems to be just enough friction to make the idea unappealing.

[1] https://www.diono.com/us/product/radian-3r-2020/

The Radian is definitely king of three across. But they're premium priced ($200 each, or $600 for three), and sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips.

In general people who have never had kids don't seem to grasp that the average (non-Radian) car-seat is BIGGER than an adult side-to-side. The Radian series has a niche because they produced a car-seat the same size as an adult (with no loss of safety), but had to sacrifice comfort to do so.

> sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips.

I guess maybe they are less comfortable than traditional car seats, but since car seats are basically build like lazy-boy recliners, that seems unsurprising.

Our kids have never complained about the comfort or lack-thereof. They seem to have pretty equivalent comfort when compared to the back seat itself as far as I can tell.

That definitely seems like an improvement over car seats from the 90s. As an adult I still remember hating full-day road trips in the hard-plastic-with-a-fabric-liner car seat my parents owned; my butt was always sore after sitting in it for too long.

Car seats are way better than they were when I was a kid in the 80s. I recall that my car seat as a kid was a hard vinyl upright contraption that made me carsick whenever I rode in it for a long time. My mom actually sewed fabric covers for it so it wouldn't burn me on hot summer days.

My kid's infant car seat was a click 'n go bassinet with a soft fabric liner. His convertible car seat stays in the car, but it still reclines better than any adult seat, with more plush padding than the car itself. He actually prefers the car over the bed for naps. Only problem is that he's still rear-facing and his legs are getting a bit too long for the seat, but he solves that by putting his feet up.

Kid stuff is one area where I've been pleasantly surprised by how technology advanced when I wasn't looking. Car seats, strollers, baby gates, and toys are all way more advanced (and cheaper, inflation-adjusted) than they were in the 80s.

You kids are funny - I remember sleeping in the back of our station wagon with my sister while we were flying down the autobahn. (Yes, it seems crazy today).

My main gripe about the car seat is all the damn waste. We have four of them and you can't sell them or even give them away. I'm not sure about the recycling situation yet, but even in the best case not much can be recycled.

There's no reason you can't gift a non-expired car seat, or even sell it. It's probably not a good idea to buy one on Craigslist, but we had no qualms about taking a secondhand car seat from a trusted source who assured us it hasn't been in any accidents.

Keep them and give them to family, otherwise donate to charity? Heck, check your local community chats/groups/forums, you can probably sell it for a small amount. Someone will find a way to resell it and make a profit.

There is a fear that car seats can be weakened by being involved in a crash.

My opinion is that it's way overblown, how many people have a serious crash with kids in the car? How many of them would then go on to resell the car seat? How many of those people would go on to have another serious crash to test the theory?

That said, when it comes to protecting our children, it's hard to justify saving a few bucks.

I remember sleeping on the windowsill behind the back seat of our car. Good times.

What makes you say they're less comfortable? Compared to my kid's carseat, it looks like they removed the side bolsters (which are like 6" tall in mine) but kept everything else basically the same - a few mm of foam and some neoprene over plastic.

Yeah, the Diono is also just the most well-designed car seat, in all sorts of ways: e.g. they have the best-designed latch clips I’ve seen.

As a new parent, I was surprised how much space a kid took up. I didn't know about Radian car seats - we did Graco. We also upgraded to an SUV (Honda Pilot), and then a minivan (Pacifica) to hold all of our kids. The cars were expensive. As young adults, with small incomes, having to buy large vehicles was a punch to the gut.

Let's say it costs you $200k to raise a kid to adulthood [0]. A Honda Civic costs $25k new [1], an 8-seater Honda Odyssey costs $31k new [2]. A car lasts 10+ years so conservatively that's $12k extra in transportation costs for your fourth child. Maybe you can argue it's $20k with fuel.

That...doesn't seem unreasonable? As a society, we like people to start families and continue the human race, but we know overpopulation is a thing and we don't want everyone to have huge families. 10% extra marginal cost is small, and offset by other economies of scale.

[0] I don't have a better estimate for this than Bill Waterson putting it at $100k. In 1987. https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/07/24

[1] https://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/

[2] https://www.edmunds.com/honda/odyssey/

> That...doesn't seem unreasonable?

Financially, no it isn't unreasonable. But it's an added bit of friction to a decision we are already on the fence about.

I think that's the entire point of the article. Adding friction to the decision on whether to have more kids leads to people having fewer kids.

> but we know overpopulation is a thing

Overpopulation is not a thing anywhere in West.

We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex.

> We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex.

Do you have any citations for this? Not snarking—genuinely curious, not arguing, but I was under the impression that most population growth in developed countries like the U.S. was due to immigration rather than above-replacement fertility rates.

If you think globally, the population still appears to be on the rise.

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

{Edited for typo}

It probably depends on the metric you're trying to optimize. I was curious about that as well, but I was thinking in terms of the maximum number of humans the earth can support. We certainly haven't hit that yet, we have large swaths of land allocated to relatively inefficient means of producing food (i.e. cattle).

Also, don't we need some level of population growth for Social Security to function correctly? We could replace Social Security, but it would be difficult and expensive.

The world overall might have too high a birth rate but almost all Western countries have a birth rate below the replacement level of 2.1 (e.g. US, UK, AUS all at 1.7 [0] and falling [1]).

Unless you make up this difference with immigration, you have a declining population, which creates all sorts of short term issues.

Given that western countries have become increasingly hostile to immigration, especially from developing countries, trying to increase birth rate in western countries is a reasonable thing to explore imo.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

Let's explore that after we figured out how to live without destroying the planet.

The economy will collapse if there are 2 pensioners per employee

Because its built on bullshit. With the automation we have today we could easily satisfy the needs of everyone with fewer workers. Its the obscene demand for constant growth that causes these issues.

The economy will also collapse if climate change keeps going, the oceans are empty, topsoil is gone, aquifers depleted, insect populations decimated...

> The economy will also collapse if climate change keeps going, the oceans are empty, topsoil is gone, aquifers depleted, insect populations decimated...

Yeah, there's a tension here it seems. But it's harder to fix a pension system with technology, and the system is much more socially fragile. There are policy approaches available in the US that might not be available elsewhere (e.g., lifting income caps on social security and medicare taxes) that will kick the can a bit further down the road, but it's challenging to make diverse societies peaceful and cohesive.

On the other hand, private enterprise and technology have a bevy of tools that aren't as readily available to policy makers. Government in principle can encourage more environmentally-friendly energy and food production, but they're not in the business of actually innovating.

Most developed countries have a declining population, most of europe has a fertility rate of 1.5. We are propping it up with immigration, and if it goes too low, the pention system would collapse - there would be not enough people in work to support the elderly.

>"problem isn't that complex."

It's a very conplex problem, people, especially women, had a tectonic shift in their priorities, culture and family size.

All developing and developed countries are on the same trajectory of declining birthrates, and I have not seen any policy that can raise it succesfully.

The only places with high birth rates are Africa and SE Asia. These days complaining of birth rates has a tinge of racism. Wouldn’t want too many more brown and black people would we? Especially with white birth rates in a free fall that doesn’t seem to have a bottom.

A lot of the "too many people" complaints are directed at the West and 1st-World countries. So not complaints about "too many black/brown people", but rather "too many White/Western people", which is obviously not racist at all!

Ironic if true since given current trends there won’t be many white/western people left within a short amount of time.

I mean in the US you’ll also need to save 6 figures for the kid’s college as well…

Except National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rated Dino carseats with 2 stars for ease of use. Which means you're more likely to injure a child when using the seat.

> the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five

I recently visited Pakistan for the first time, and was amazed to see a family of five riding around on a small Honda motorbike. The father was driving, a small child sat in front of the father, the was mother hanging on behind the father, and the oldest daughter sitting on the far back with both legs hanging off to the left while holding an infant. None of them were wearing helmets. It was both terrifying & impressive.

I once saw a motorbike with two people and a cow in western Kenya. It wasn't a /big/ cow, but still.

Helmets work but after working in automotive safety, motorcycles are death traps.

I can't emphasize this enough.

They are no automobile, and are not comparable.

That's why so many people like them.

It's a pleasant distraction from sitting in a fluorescently-lit cubicle getting diabetes, and facing the dread of going home to another night's existential crisis.

Twist that throttle and there's a gentle tap on the shoulder and a whisper, 'hey buddy, just wanted to remind you that you're actually alive'.

What other precautionary methods could help reduce mortality rates of motorcycles?

Build a car around them?

In India TATA tried that. Built $2000 car (tata nano). Target audience were the bike going families.

First , the motor bikes are cheap. So you need car matching that cost and you end up compromising a lot.

https://thewire.in/business/tata-nano-why-did-the-people-not...

Keeping your speed under 40km/h would do a lot. And removing cars from streets.

Yeah, the average speed of traffic in Pakistan, at least in the areas I visited, was much lower that I'd expect to see in the USA.

When you look at the curve of chance of death vs speed, it very very rapidly rises. You have very little risk of serious injury at 40km/h and almost certain death at 60km/h

I was in Ukraine in the mid-00s. Saw a five person motorcycle. No helmets, but they had an open side-car so a bit more space. Youngest kid was in a bucket held by big sister.

Add to that a wooden box with a small metal bars through which I could glance a couple of chickens that were being transported by the family, in Vietnam. Amazing.

The rate of children deaths or severe injuries caused by motorbike accidents must have been over the roof in these countries.

Must have been? Large parts of Southeast Asia still get around with the whole family on one motorbike today. Not so much in the large cities but once you get outside them, absolutely.

The road deaths are also very large in those countries (though a fair amount of that is also people going high speeds on roads that would not be rated for that speed in a developed country)

>> the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five

My wife and I had the minivan discussion. They are amazingly practical when you need to carry vast amounts of crap. Neither of us was particularly interested in driving around in one though, so we optimized by carrying less crap around.

I'd say about 99% of our usage of our 4 door sedan or small SUV requires no additional cargo capacity for our family. For the other 1% of the time, we're able to optimize by carrying less stuff. I think there has been 1 or 2 times in 13 years where cargo capacity was insufficient. For us, it was a tradeoff worth making.

We totally respect those who make different choices, though. Everyone has their own preferences and needs.

Saw much of that in Hyderabad 2008.

It's one way the lethality of poverty is visible.

I saw the same thing in India.

There's an individual on YouTube who does a great job reviewing carseat fits into various vehicles. The example below he fits 3 car seats in the back of a Ford Focus, which most people wouldn't consider to be a large car.

Alex on Autos https://youtu.be/RTh06yWql_s?t=223

It can be done. There's also a great product called the MultiMac sold in the UK and I think the EU. Fits 4 in the back seat, worth checking out if available in your locale. It won't ship to the US for regulatory reasons. https://youtu.be/zybM8cltCxU?t=179

Let's not forget the expiration dates on Car Safety Seats. C'mon, really? Seats with Styrofoam may deteriorate eventually but I haven't heard of a casualties due to expired car seats.

All the car seats for my kids were chiefly composed of plastics. I'm sure there is quite a high factor of safety for car seat design, but there are quite a few time and temperature related failure modes for plastics (i.e. getting brittle over time as the plasticizers outgas, UV exposure, etc.).

https://www.sintef.no/globalassets/project/ffs/dokumenter/se...

https://www.amazon.com/Plastics-Failure-Guide-2E-Prevention/...

This is part of the plan to force people to buy new. They make it illegal to sell any kids stuff older than a year or two.

To be fair, how do you test this - as a system - effectively. The consequences of failure on a child seat are not like, say, a stand mixer. That being said, I suspect it has more to do with the manufacturer attempting to limit their liability window. It's wasteful right, but in a litigious world, I get it.

Start crash testing expired seats and compare results to new ones of the same make/model. They expire relatively quickly, so they would not be difficult to find. For example, our Graco Keyfit 30 expires after 6 years.

I think you’d have to mandate it legislatively though. There are no incentives for seat manufacturers to do this of their own volition. The quick expiration works in their favor on every front...

Chicco Keyfit 30

Not quite the same thing (adult seats vs car seats, and it's possible they were just faulty from the factory rather than expired), but the last time I was rear-ended the seats snapped behind me. Quite the experience really -- to stop you from going forward you have seat belts, air bags, and all kinds of fancy engineering. Inertia is a cruel mistress when the car moves forward out from under you though, and the only things ensuring your forward motion are a couple of broken seats (thankfully there weren't any passengers or children in car seats for me to smash into) and the 2-ton metal projectile poking through the ass end of your car.

Some tests have found that brand new seats break when loaded near their stated limits. I think it is reasonable to say that plastic weakened due to the relatively harsh thermal and UV conditions in a car would fare worse.

https://www.consumerreports.org/toddler-booster-seats/child-...

I don't think a seat will get any UV exposure in a car, UV does not pass through glass

Glass blocks most, but not all UV [0]. And people open their windows sometimes.

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12925188/

Regulatory Capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

It isn't the exception; it is the rule. Bodies that govern an industry are _inevitably_ captured by the industry they govern, because that industry has the absolute highest incentive to write the rules it has to follow.

When I was young, this was what minivans were for: families with three kids.

Minivans are only un-cool until you are forced to appreciate their practicality. They can transport groups of kids and all their gear, a bunch of dogs, a surprising amount of furniture or even large sheets of lumber or drywall. I would only consider replacing my minivan with an electric minivan.

My wife and I don't have kids (yet) but absolutely love our Pacifica minivan. It fits 4x8 sheets of plywood in the back perfectly (it was designed this way), all of the seats fold down into the floor, which is awesome, and it can tow a trailer.

We actually got it because it meant we could more easily pack more things to burning man every year. Since then we've done tons of road trips all over the country, and build the back of the van into a bed.

Love that car. Hoping to upgrade to a hybrid with the comma.ai autopilot eventually.

Note that the Pacifica Hybrid doesn't have stow-and-go for the middle row of seats (the battery fills that space), and has no rated towing capacity.

We're still big fans of ours though.

Oh that's a deal breaker. Damnit!

Still want that comma.ai, though!

I inherited my family’s old minivan while I was at college—a small, private one where the students lived on campus and most didn’t have their own vehicles. Overnight my popularity skyrocketed.

Not full electric, but we've been loving our Pacifica PHEV. You do sacrifice a bit of practicality—no towing capability, and the middle seats don't fold into the floor like the gas version (the battery is down there)—but in the summer we sometimes go months without refueling.

I fully concur on the practicality. The only vehicle more versatile than a minivan is full-size van (my family's conversion van growing up was insanely useful).

Thanks for the heads up on the PHEV and the stow-and-go seats. That one would be a no-go for us because we it to haul stuff all the time. With the seats fully stowed it's practically as good as a pickup truck.

Of course, you have to get all the toy cars and goldfish crackers off the floor first if you want the seats to actually stow.

I've found the goldfish crackers readily crush themselves out of the way and the dust vacuums up fairly easily, especially if left to age for at least three months. Toy cars can definitely bugger up latches and hinges, though.

BETTER than a pickup in my opinion! You can lock the doors.

I called my parents minivan the indoor pickup truck, the seats spent more time stowed to haul stuff then not (after kids were grown)

I was a triplet in the 80s where the fullsize van was a family favorite, and I haven’t seen vans much since.

Why did the fullsize van fall out of style? (Assuming it did)

It doesn’t seem much bigger than the other goliath SUVs and pickup trucks that saturate our US streets.

Actual full size vans from that era had horrible crash safety records, perhaps they built a bad reputation because of that?

It was the unibody minivan that killed their reputation.

Full size vans were larger, yes, but due to their construction being based on legacy truck platforms, they offered a wildly inferior driving experience. They got single digit gas mileage (many had dual gas tanks to compensate), were clumsy to park, were rear-wheel drive, relatively more expensive to maintain, and offered a stiff and unrefined ride.

When the Caravan was introduced, it was better in every single way that would be relevant for the average family.

Stuff like the Ford Transit is a lot better than the Econoline it replaced, but they didn't bring it to the US until they were about 29 years too late.

In the 80s people didn't care that much. An 80s van is still gonna beat an 80s car in terms of crash test results. And the bad results are only for the driver's legs. The kids in rows 2/3/4 are safe as can be

Don't forget the 5th row. My van has 15 seats. I'll fill the final seat this summer.

The safety problem is that most drivers can't deal well with a suspension that lets the vehicle movement lag well behind the driver inputs. Drivers would roll the vans over while driving on perfectly straight roads with good pavement. It's the same as pilot-in-the-loop oscillation. When the vehicle has a delayed response, the operator will overdo the input. That then needs to be corrected, but the correction may also be overdone. Each mistake leads to another mistake of larger magnitude in the opposite direction.

The extended-body vans like mine are particularly bad. When the body got extended, the rear axle didn't get moved rearward. Instead, the read tire pressure was increased to compensate for bad axle location.

Non-professional drivers often got asked to drive these vans for daycare, church groups, and other group activities. The problem got so bad that the federal government mandated that states act to keep the vans from being used for daycare and similar uses. Each state did something different. My state uses a $250,000 fine against the original dealer that sold the vehicle new, even if the vehicle was subsequently sold. This totally shut down new vehicle sales. The vans can be leased however, and they can be purchased coming off of a lease. As a result, all vans are provisioned as preferred by the rental companies. (white, naturally aspirated gasoline V8, cloth seats, etc.)

> I'll fill the final seat this summer.

I’m so envious! Congratulations!

I don't get it, do you have 13 children?

It depends on how you count: 1 unborn, 1 miscarriage, 2 legal adults still here, and 10 others. That could add up to 10, 11, 12, 13, or 14. All are from the same mother.

Car seats go in rows 2 and 3, since those are easiest to reach from the side door. It helps that our state hasn't totally caved to the car seat industry lobbying.

I have good memories of growing up in the 90s with a fullsize van as the family vehicle.

The most 90s thing of all was probably my dad plugging an inverter into the cigarette lighter so that he could power a SNES and 10" TV on our 24-hour drive to Pennsylvania to pacify us kids. That was peak existence for young me.

> That was peak existence for young me.

Man, I felt shivers just reading this. So much 90s cool.

Got the Pacifica a few years ago, never looked back. Probably will buy a new one in a few years.

What is the wear and tear cost per mile? I would be very apprehensive about investing in a Fiat Chrysler product.

Fiat cars are pretty cheap.

Sometimes a Fiat is the only reasonable option. That was the case when I bought my smallest car. Despite the small exterior size, the 500L is really roomy on the inside. It works for a person who is 6'10" (208 cm) tall, leaving enough room to sit up straight and wear a hat. None of the normal large cars (SUV, minivan, pickup, etc.) were as good. With the short length and small turn radius, parking is very easy.

I've never done the calculation, but we haven't had anything major come up yet on our 2017. We did have a corrosion problem on the aluminum hood out of warranty, and Chrysler fixed it for free.

The Pacifica Hybrid is wonderful. We buy very little gasoline (even less this year).

How are they on road trips? Instead of a luxury SUV, my main concern is comfort.

We do a lot of cross country trips visiting family and my wife and I will alternate driving. If passenger gets tired of looking at the road or wants to get some sleep they usually hop over the center console and go hang out in the power reclining 3rd row. 2 kids ride in the 2 center captain chairs and one in the 3rd. Larger dog (90 lb) usually wanders around between everything. We usually put a cargo box on top so we can keep the cabin cleaner but we'd still fit without it.

I also own a top trim mid-sized luxary SUV and I'd say the limited pacifica (plus all packages) is easily the go-to option for comfort on road trips. Its no contest how much better something like that is compared to what basically equates to a larger sedan with a big trunk. Maybe something like a suburban or a yukon xl could compete but thats about all I'd think might.

Great driver and front passenger comfort. I haven't heard the kids complain about the rest of the seating. I've sat in the middle row a couple times and being tall-ish it wasn't as good as the front but still pretty decent.

The ride itself is great, and its not noisy. There's an active noise cancellation system, not sure if it does anything as I don't think I can turn it off to compare.

Great for road trips! I've taken more than 6 trips longer than 15 hours and they rock.

If you want comfort, get an E-class wagon or similar. SUVs are not built for comfort.

I hated minivans until we caved and got one. It is easily the most useful vehicle I have ever owned. Best "pickup" I've ever owned as well.

My wife and I rented one while on a vacation trip with our two girls to North Carolina. Holy moly was it convenient!!! Very eye-opening experience.

Whatever happened to station wagons, with all those extra flip-up seats in the back bay?

This is the new Wagon Queen Family Truckster. This is a damn fine automobile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzXN5sQ5g-U&ab_channel=Foste...

Whichever car designer decided to laminate simulated wood on the sides of the car needs to have their car taken away.

Now you can get color LCD panels that simulate simulated laminated wood on the sides of your car, including simulated wear and fading and scratches.

They're called SUVs now and the extra seats are absent so that they can be styled with a sloping back. Priorities.

I'd guess it has more to do with rear-impacy safety and crumple zones - the Tahoe is pretty square and could fit some small seats back there.

Actually, they should reboot National Lampoon's vacation with an electric vehicle. That would be funny to watch.

COVID Vacation: The Griswold family rides VR exercise bicycles all around the country!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OOBfeLPqSk&ab_channel=Casan...

don't SUV's fulfil that niche now? Basically station wagons with a slightly higher driving position? source: Drive a Kia Sorrento with 7 seats - two in the back row that flip up.

Sure but when I was young it wasn't mandated for children to be in car seats until the age of 8 like TFA mentions. I was sitting in the back seat but I was definitely not in a car seat once I was around 4-5.

When I was young in the 90s, our car didn't even have seat belts for the back seats and child seats were unheard of.

When I was young you could fit 6 in a sedan and 8 in a station wagon. Bench seats in the front have gone away (I assume due to airbags). We didn't have a big family, but on car-pools, I was the smallest so I always got stuck straddling the stick shift for the cars that had the shifter on the floor.

Throw in one kids best friend who is always around and maybe a grandparent who lives alone, going up to a 7 seater starts to get appealing pretty quickly.

Minivans seat 7-8, which is 6 kids.

If your kids have friends, you'll probably find yourself driving around as many kids as that fairly often. I was raised in a family of five and my parents had a minivan because nothing smaller would have been practical. Even if you can technically squeeze 3 kids into the back of a sedan, good luck going more than 30 minutes away without fights breaking out. And even if your kids are particularly well mannered, they still won't be comfortable. If you're driving a few hours to visit family, do you want to have a headache from fighting kids when you get there? Or kids in sour moods because their sibling wouldn't stop elbowing them?

With today's car seats, it can be made to work but it's a challenge. Realistically 2 kids in car seats makes the middle seat of anything but the largest cars impractical. At which point you are going up an extra row of seats, 6 seat layouts are uncommon.

In practice, Minivans seat 7 - Two adults, three of your own kids, and two of the neighbors.

You can't fill every back seat with a car seat. You will have issues accessing the rear if you put 3 in the middle row, the rear seat often isn't wide enough to accommodate three seats

Alright, don't leave me hanging -- which Volkswagen?

The Sharan fits seven persons (possibly seven adults, but the two back seats could be a bit tight for some), and is wide enough in the middle row for three kids in kids' seats.

It still looks and handles like a normal car rather than a bus.

Either the Sharan or a Caravelle? The Caravelle seems to be a favourite with big families in Europe

edit: but neither are sedans

My guess would be the Passat.

My family had a VW Passat in the late 80's, lots of fond memories.

I'll even give a pass to the neighborhood kids who stole the VW badge (yay Beastie Boys!) ....... You know you're out there ... you might now be the CFO for a mid-size logistics company specializing in a modern, flexible forward-thinking unrivaled logistics service but back then my dad was NOT happy that morning when he discovered the badge was missing.

When my partner and I had our third, the Mazda 5 was our compromise vehicle— still has sliding doors and the overall aesthetics of a minivan, but drives like a car, gets decent gas mileage, and has a footprint comparable to a CUV for the purposes of parking and so-on.

We may well go to a full size van at some point, but once the kids are no longer babies, they actually travel somewhat lighter— no stroller, playpen, diaper bag, etc being shlepped everywhere.

The Ford Transit Connect is an awesome, just slightly larger version of that if you want to be a bit smaller than a full-sized van or a Metris.

Now if only they sold it with air suspension (or back breaking stiff coils) so it could also replace pickups...

I would have bought a Mazda 5 if they still sold them. However, I don't live in a great place for buying used.

Glad you found a vehicle that worked for you.

Minivans have locked this market segment up for years. Honda Odyssey & Toyota Sienna are the market leaders.

> the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five

Yes, but only if you count by unique line items. If you count by market share, the large family market is well served.

“S.U.V.s made up 47.4 percent of U.S. sales in 2019 with sedans at 22.1 percent,” said Tom Libby, automotive analyst at IHS Markit. “By 2025, we see the light-truck segment that includes S.U.V.s, vans and pickups to make up 78 percent of sales compared to 72 percent now.”[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/business/suv-sales-best-s...

There are plenty of SUVs that won't fit 3 car seats in back any better than a Civic.

very true. consumers would be well served by car reviews that indicated total car seat capacity.

Even if you find a seat configuration that fits, the next hassle that drove me nuts was getting access to seatbelts easily. Taking the kids anywhere is that much more annoying when you can't rely on the oldest at least sorting out their own buckles. (Only just occurred to me that a seatbelt extender would probably help bring the receiving part of the latch up from the depths between the seats -- too late now, bought a different car.)

Almost worth staggering births so that after three years the eldest is able to handle buckling themselves and then siblings. Worth finding every advantage like this when you're outnumbered by children.

I guess that's why Minivans are popular here in the US. I have a Mazda 5, which is like a mini-minivan and it's probably big enough for 3 car seats. I really like this car, too bad Mazda gave up on them here in the US.

I agree, but I also have friends who fit three car seats into a Honda. It’s super tight, but it can be done.

Your comment leads me to wonder if car safety laws also contribute to this. Back in the day cars were large and you could fit four kids in the back of a station wagon. In sedans, there was a platform behind the seats in the rear that kids could stretch out on (no seatbelt of course).

The cost of raising a child is roughly 10-15k a year. How much is the car upgrade (on a per year basis)?

This is an even bigger problem to solve when you factor in that:

- Different countries have different standards, so car seats vary accordingly

- Models change over the years

So finding out if you can get three car seats into a car is a massive headache.

Seems like a good opp. Make a bench seat attachment that fits into most cars, with interchangeable carseats for different aged kids. Could have a 3-wide and a 4-wide model for different sized cars.

I've been thinking about whether, when we have our fourth, to get a minivan, or just jump straight to a 15 passenger van. I know I'll need one eventually.

We got the 7 seater transit after we were pregnant with our fourth, then exchanged it for the sub 7ft height 15 seater after we had 5.

Isn't the XC90 basically the textbook school run car?

For people in a certain economic class, yes. For those where it's out of reach financially, there's the Odyssey and the Sienna.

just get a minivan

You can do it in almost any car. You just need narrower car seats. Cosco has several that are narrower.

I own a Cosco from Walmart (for travel), and while they're the smallest and lightest legal seats on the market the build and safety is inferior.

There's a reason we own it, and don't use it day-to-day. It is a fine occasional "grandparent seat" or for travel, but if it is your daily driver and need three across, the Radian is a safer & much better built alternative.

Why on earth would you buy a sedan if you need to haul stuff/dogs around?

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