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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this means they are thinking of making an all-electric minivan.

I love my Honda minivan, but its biggest issue is that 95% of the time I'm doing a short drive which is just killer on the engine and the environment.

Next year there are a bunch of electric minivans coming out, but they are all of the "2nd tier" vans, ie not the Toyota or Honda, which are sort of the gold standard of minivans.

The moment either of them drop an all-electric, I'll be like that meme with Fry shouting "take my money".

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As much as I dislike domestic minivans, I've really liked our Pacifia Hybrid. It covers that "95%" just fine in the summer (in the winter the resistive heat (and general cold temperature impact) takes a toll on range).

I'd imagine a EV minivan would use a heat pump instead of a resistive heater. That'd have a much smaller toll on the winter range.

Yeah, if it was a pure EV I suspect that's the route they would have gone. As a plug-in hybrid, it matters a lot less (since you only have ~30 miles of battery range anyway).

Why would a PHEV use a resistive heater instead of running the engine cooling system?

Generally plug-in hybrids run off the battery, like an electric car, until they discharge it and need the engine.

We looked at the Pacifica hybrid when we bought ours, but that year (2017) it was brand new and the mechanic recommended against it until Chrysler had a chance to work out the kinks in their hybrid technology.

If I had to get a new van today, I'd consider it (or their all-electric next year).

I have a 2017 gas Pacifica, purchased in 2016, and yeah, I would suggest not getting a first model year vehicle.

The PHEV might be nice, but you lose the underfloor storage and can't fold the middle seats into the floor.

The seats in the PHEV are nicer than the folding seats in the gas model and the pop out pretty easily. We have the passenger one out full time, easier to get to the kids in the back and allows for more storage when travelling.

Minivans seem like a great fit for PHEV. Short trips could be all-electric, and the longer ones powered by an ICE running efficiently at highway speeds.

Yeah, I could even get excited about a hybrid Honda van, as it would meet pretty much all my use cases.

But for some reason the company that basically did hybrid first for some reason won't do it anymore.

Toyota really did hybrid first. Honda has lagged on hybrids their whole existence. And the Toyota Sienna minivan is a hybrid.

Not plugin though, at least not yet. AFAIK the Chrysler Pacifica is the only plugin minivan on the NA market at the moment.

The Honda Insight came 2 years before the Prius. I’m still bitter because it came in manual, which no other hybrid since has.

Toyota released the Prius first, but it was exclusive to Japan until 2000. The Insight was available in North America first by few months.

Yeah, a PHEV Sienna would be outstanding.

Chrysler makes a PHEV version of the Pacifica, but only in FWD and I'm looking for AWD.

Is there no PHEV in the minivan space? I drive a PHEV Prius with a 40k electric-only range and it's great for guilt-free short trips without being a 2-tonne brick of batteries.

There is the Toyota and Chrysler, both of which I would consider if I had to get a new van right now. But in 2017 there wasn't a viable option.

The Toyota Sienna isnt a PHEV, at least not yet.

My understanding is that the Toyota is easy to hack into a plug in so I count it, but you're right, technically it isn't.

Yes, merely a 1.75 ton brick of batteries, among other parts

Which is actually pretty inline with a typical midsize sedan. People really underestimate how much cars weigh. But EVs are indeed pushing it up even higher. A breakthrough on reducing battery weight would be enormously beneficial all around.

Yeah, I was being a bit hyperbolic (and metric) and the a PHEV is only about 15% difference in curb-weight between comparable full-EVs, but that's not nothing.

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