First two fill-ups

54 electric miles, but only charged once

The car has been exceeding my expectations for fuel economy. I filled up the tank after 800 miles - almost a month of real-world usage that  was mostly around town, but included a trip to San Francisco (about 80 miles), a trip to Suisun (120 miles) and a trip to Pescadero (about 90 miles). It's a little surprising that the car can report more than 30 all-electric miles on a long trip, evidently due to regenerative braking. The trip to Pescadero involved going over a mountain range, which was fun because all that altitude can drive the car pretty far when you're descending.

Overall, the first tank yielded 67 MPG, which I think is exceptional. For a minivan this large, I'd expect around 22 MPG in the real world, which means that we've successfully reduced our fossil-fuel consumption by about 3X. For everyday use the reduction is even more than that, but we do take some longer trips occasionally, and for that we're glad to have the gasoline engine onboard.

After filling up the car, we went to the mountains again, this time to camp near Santa Cruz. It was a 96 mile trip through the mountains, with the car packed to the brim with stuff and people. After getting back, I filled up the car again - only 2.1 gallons for the trip, so about 45 MPG. Would have been better if I had charged overnight, but we were camping without electricity. The car made it 33 miles to Felton without using the engine, even though that involved going up and down some mountains. If you subtract the 33 miles from the initial charged battery, we had 63 miles for 2.1 gallons, which is 30 MPG for the portion of the trip after the battery ran out. This is quite a bit better than I was expecting, given that the car was loaded, the air conditioner was running, and we were driving through the mountains.

Overall, the car is outperforming my exceptions when it comes to energy efficiency. And when you consider energy efficiency per passenger, it's likely one of the best cars on the road. It's a great combination of utility and efficiency.

Delivery

We finally got the car! We've had it for a couple days and so far it's been great. The experience buying from our dealership was smooth and painless. We took it on a drive to San Francisco and back, and it performed well. On the freeway at 75 mph we got 28 miles electric range on one day and 29 miles on another, which exceeds my expectations. The kids are very excited about the sunroof and the screens inside the car. Over time, I hope to document our experience, both positive and negative, about this unique car.

Updates but no progress

So Chrysler has made two announcements in the press about shipping the hybrids:
First, they said they would start shipping them on April 17. Then, they said they would be sending level 2 chargers to customers who have been waiting. Both of these things might actually be true, but haven't yet applied to us. I called Chrysler this morning, and they cheerfully told me my car was in storage waiting for a quality check. I pointed out that it has been waiting for this quality check since February, with no visibility as to why, and they were sympathetic, but couldn't help. I also checked to see if my phone number was attached to my VIN, so that Chrysler could call me to discuss the level 2 charger, and of course they didn't. My dealership is not any help. They always seem surprised when I call to ask about the status of the car.

I'm starting to think Chrysler is just such a threatened company that they can't get their act together. Everyone, from the assembly people, to the dealership, to the customer service representatives seem unprepared and uncoordinated. It's a leap of faith for me to buy one of their products, given their reputation, and I have to admit, this experience is not helping. I just don't have any confidence that the company knows what it's doing.

Still Waiting

I look back at my earlier posts with some amusement at how optimistic I was that Chrysler would actually ship these vehicles in some reasonable amount of time. Our car is still in storage and we have no firm date as to when it will be delivered. The ship dates rumored on the Internet shift at about a rate of one day per day,  so I have absolutely no idea when they will ship.  There have been rumors of quality control checks, auditing for the EPA sticker, marketing events (evidently there's one scheduled for mid April), or that they're waiting to ship all the vans at once. I have no idea if any of these rumors are true.

I recently read a glowing review of the car by Dan Neil from the Wall Street Journal. It made me remember why I got so excited about this car in the first place - and I'm still excited. However, I am losing confidence that I'm going to get this car anytime soon. Which is a pity because my family needs it. We have a road trip scheduled for a couple weeks from now that I thought we would for sure be taking in the new car, but at this point it seems obvious we won't. I suppose we're in a vulnerable position here: because the car is so unique, there's really no alternative. Chrysler knows that, so they don't seem to be in a hurry. But it seems like they could at least give us some better messaging. If it's a quality control issue, we understand. If it's a marketing issue, that's fine, just tell us when the marketing event is going to be. As it is, the uncertainty and lack of progress is frustrating.

It's unfortunate that Chrysler marketing keeps getting press about this car, advertising it on social media (so funny that I get Facebook ads for the car, which is wasted money on Chrysler's part, since I already bought one, and any advertising actually just makes me angry.) Why are they drumming up demand for a product that they cannot sell? It would seem wise or for them to hold off on the press campaign until they're actually able to deliver the car. As it is, I'm starting to think about canceling my order. It's true that I signed a contract, but part of the contract is that I get a car. And I don't have one. We'll see how this gets handled. I'll probably be able to wait another month, although with increasing frustration.

In storage

So it's been a while, and our car is still not here. Evidently Chrysler is holding all hybrid Pacificas in some kind of storage. The good news is that the car was actually built, and the build sheet shows all the options we were expecting. No one seems to know why hybrid Pacificas aren't shipping, or when they'll get things figured out.

We're disappointed but still hopeful that the delays will lead to a better car.

All parts reserved, not yet in assembly

So our car is still not delivered. I called my dealership to see if they could give me any information about where it was in the order/assembly/delivery process, but they weren't super helpful. In fact, they seemed a little surprised I was calling to ask - the attitude was: "Don't you trust us that we will call you as soon as it arrives?"

Truth be told: no, I don't trust them. The dealership experience hasn't been super great. The dealership itself looks like it has seen better days: it hasn't been remodeled in decades and the inside is tired and a little shabby. The process of ordering this vehicle wasn't super great: they asked me to pay significantly over MSRP for a vehicle that I've never seen, and they weren't even clear on the options it has. After a lot of back and forth, I finally managed to get them to show me the order sheet that has some option information, but even so, we had to take on faith that we'd like the colors in real life and that it would have the options we wanted, because the order sheet is not nearly as detailed as the window sticker. They then offered us a terrible loan with an interest rate about 2X what our credit union offered, and their trade-in value for our old car is about half what the Blue Book says. I made the decision to purchase anyway despite these annoyances, although I'll be using my credit union and selling my old car separately. Overall, I feel like this dealership is more focused on extracting money than on customer service, so no, I don't trust them to keep me informed about the progress of our car - because they already won the sale, so their incentives to do stuff for me aren't great!

The good news is that Chrysler customer service is actually pretty good. I called them at 800-334-9200, and they were able to instantly look up my VIN and tell me where the car was. They also said they'd be happy to continue updating me on the progress of the car over the next couple weeks as it's finally assembled and delivered. So that's good. I also found that my car has been in D1 status (parts reserved, ready to start assembly) since December 20. So hopefully it's getting close to completion.

I also found that it's possible to look up your window sticker by editing the following URL to include your VIN: http://www.chrysler.com/hostd/windowsticker/getWindowStickerPdf.do?vin=1C3CCCCG8GN100833

Mine isn't there yet, I think because the car hasn't completed assembly, but I'll be checking this often until it's there. Can't wait to find out the full story on what we bought.

I chalk up some of this inconvenience to being one of the first buyers of a new car. Supply is lower than demand, especially around the SF Bay Area. So I'm not upset - but I am glad to have found some resources to figure out where my car is in the process. And hopefully I'll only have to wait a few weeks for delivery!

In Contract

Demand for Pacifica hybrid models is pretty strong here in the SF Bay Area, so I decided to go ahead and sign a contract to buy one even before the car has been delivered. This is somewhat risky, since I'm buying a car that doesn't exist yet! But the reviews have been pretty good, and I'm trusting that the dealer and I will be able to sort out any issues that come up with our particular car. We got the model that we were looking for, although it took a lot of back and forth with the dealer to ensure that it actually had the features we wanted.

The dealer said they've been allocated 5 hybrid models, and that 3 of them have already been sold, so they have 2 remaining, and that they don't expect Chrysler to be making them very fast. I wish this didn't seem so plausible, but Sergio Marchionne, who runs Fiat Chrysler these days, has made it clear he doesn't like EVs, because he loses money on them, and is worried that a shift to EVs would make traditional car companies obsolete. Even though the Pacifica Hybrid seems like a very useful blend of all the things we're looking for, I worry that Chrysler will not be making many of them because it's not well aligned with the company's mission and interests. Now, I'm aware that dealers tell stories. Actually, I rather hope that the dealer was telling me a story to get me to sign this contract as quickly as possible - that a year from now there will be tons of Pacifica Hybrids on the road. But I decided to go ahead and sign the contract because I'm excited about this car and I do think they'll be hard to find, especially in the SF Bay Area. I expect to wait about a month before the car is delivered. Unfortunately, it seems that Chrysler's Vehicle Order Tracking System was discontinued, so I won't be able to watch the car be built and delivered. I'll be sure to post about how delivery goes.