Minivans

The 2018 Odyssey should be great. But it's not here.

So, why did we choose the Pacifica over the other options out there? The most important reason is that it's the only plugin minivan out there. There's no other 7 passenger vehicle that can go 30 miles on electric power only but also hold 64 full size sheets of plywood.

But there are other reasons. The Pacifica has gotten great reviews from all the car publications, which praise its refinement, design, and functionality. My wife refused to try the Kia Sedona because she still has biases against Kia. We test drove a Honda Odyssey, and liked it quite a bit, although its current design is feeling a little stale - it doesn't have all the gadgets that our Pacifica does. Honda will unveil the 2018 Odyssey in a few weeks, and I expect it'll be pretty great, but I didn't want to wait until it became available. The Toyota Sienna is also needing a redesign - its major differentiator is four wheel drive, which we don't need. The Nissan Quest gets generally bad reviews, so we didn't try it out.

Overall, the Pacifica is currently the newest, most well-received minivan on the market, so it would have been under consideration even without the plug. But what really sold us was that we could get it as a range extended electric vehicle.