SW17LS

As a minivan buyer, I don't care what it looks like lol. It has cool seats that slide in with car seats making the third row accessible. I'm buying it!

mmarshall

That's one way that you GET resources and capital...by not blowing it unnecessarily. Of course, we can (and often do) debate endlessly on what auto companies should and not spend money on.

BrownPride

Why are ya'll getting so worked up? It's just a minivan, nobody with their head screwed on straight would buy something so lame given how many crossovers are on the market.

Let the mommy mobile lovers have their day.

Fizzboy7

Yes, that is definitely the case. But it's just a break-it-down way of saying the same thing as saving money. When you fill in model years with little improvements instead of one big change, you are still delaying the high cost of that big change. In the longrun, that ultimately saves the company money. Saving money is cost-cutting, or somewhat along the same lines of such.

Toys4RJill

The Sienna and Odyssey are still a cut above all other minivans. It's almost no contest. The Dodge and Pacifica are good but still can't demand the price point of Toyota. The KIA is ok at best. I think there was a comparison in Car and Driver a few years ago. Sienna came on top. KIA was a little smaller inside and does not get the EPA. I look at it like this. Toyota and Honda for the white collar Starbucks loving pay for daycare type of owner whole the KIA/Dodge are more for the blue collar , Dunkin Donuts crowd who has a stay at home mom. The Pacifica I have no idea where they fit in. Minivans are better buys than a SUV, but who really wants one? I must say, my brother has a 16 Sienna fully loaded model, niver than a Lexus interior IMO.

LexBob2

Car and Driver currently ranks the segment as they see it: Pacifica, Odyssey, Sienna, Sedona.

SW17LS

And I think people who have to drive kids around have a screw loose for buying Crossovers over Minivans lol. You loose so much utility in a crossover.

Until my kids are older no way I'm trading my Minivan.

As for the Pacifica not being able to demand the price point of a Toyota. Loaded it's actually more than a Sienna. Much better van. Main issue with the Sedona is its old, and they are terrible inside.

mmarshall

The one thing that the Sienna still has going for it is that it still is the only minivan left in the American market with an AWD option (assuming, of course, that they keep that option for 2018). This is a part of the market that other automakers simply don't address.

SW17LS

I think they don't address it because the market is very limited. Originally I thought I wanted that but I wouldn't buy a minivan with AWD now.

mmarshall

That's one way of looking at it (and it's a valid point). But, in my view, an equally valid one is that one reason SUV sales are so hot is, in part, because minivans, except for the Sienna, don't offer AWD. I've long been a firm believer in the idea that you can't sell what you don't produce.

SW17LS

I don't think it has anything to do with that, I think it's all about image

Aron9000

^ I'm going to agree with marshall on that one. A lot of parents might view AWD as a safety feature. You don't want to get stuck in a snow storm with your little kids(especially if they're infants/toddlers). Of course I have no idea why you'd need to get somewhere with your kids if its a freaking blizzard outside. If a FWD minivan with snow tires isn't going to get the job done, maybe you and the kids should stay home if the roads are that bad. But once again, preying people's vulnerabilities, a car with AWD "will not" get you stuck in a blizzard where the highway patrol has to come rescue you after you've sat in the car for 16 hours under a blanket and have frostbite on your toes.

AWD is superior in the snow, but I often times think people buy an AWD SUV more because of marketing/that sense of fear/feeling of superiority when the snow flies. I know that's especially true where I live, this past year we didn't see a single snow event, and even when it does snow, the main roads are usually clear by the afternoon of the same day.

Carmaker1

That is nothing but a devil's advocate argument and not what I was addressing at all. As I said before, they already have the necessary platform to execute a redesign, as of this very year. How it is an unnecessary expenditure or "blowing" money, to utilize what is actually available in their TNGA-K? It's not as if this is some bespoke, range topping product like the LFA was.

I say this as an engineer, that has been employed by this industry. If JLR (personal observation) and Honda can manage in some ways, surely cash-rich Toyota has no problem by comparison and has enough manpower. This is not the same as complaining about the 2016 RX and 2015 RC not being on TNGA and demanding that Toyota should've made them that way, when it wasn't feasible.


And in response to another comment (not from mmarshall): Wrong, anyone that has criticized this move, is not simply doing it because they are so "worked up" over a minivan and hanging on the edge of their seat to see what happens. It is the principle of the matter, in which it is possible for Toyota to redesign an aging product and they opted for a lazy (not even just easy) way out. The Camry which used the original K platform since 2001, is already moving to TNGA-K, a reason why the outgoing model had a 6-year life cycle versus the usual 5 years (3-decade Camry tradition).

The only way I can understand any of this, is that, while they were able to debut that version with the Camry, they wanted extra development time with it for the Sienna and didn't want both Camry and Sienna versions of TNGA-K to be running parallel in development. That was simply my point, not that Toyota should redesign the Sienna for the hell of it and blow money. I already understood such reasoning for their Sequoia and Tundra, but not so much this one. Only one product to my knowledge, will be "based" off of TNGA-K this year. Next year, it might be 2 or 3 products, which 1 of them is a Lexus model.

It would be equally as bad if in 2019, they decided to refresh the Highlander a second time after a 6-year run and then keep it another 3 years (for no logical reason outside of greed).

SW17LS

Let's put it this way, these companies know what people want. They are all more than capable of building an AWD Minivan, and in fact Chrysler has in the past. If they thought they would get an ROI out of AWD minivans, they would offer AWD minivans.

What is objective is sales, based on my Minivan shopping experience AWD Sienna's are not ubiquitous on lots the was say AWD Crossover vehicles are. You won't find a FWD Highlander for instance on a lot here, or a FWD RAV4...but most Sienna's at local dealers are FWD. Dealers stock what sells.

pman6

So, when is the minivan SUV category coming?

I mean it looks like an SUV, but has sliding rear doors