The only thing holding us up from getting an electric as our next SUV is you can’t get a vehicle like ours as an electric yet. Despite SUV’s being an extremely popular car choice now, there are very few electric SUV’s on the market yet and none of them are 3-row mid-size equivalents. Tesla has 2 “slightly taller hatchback sedans” that they market as SUV’s but they sit too low to quality and don’t have usable third rows (just fake ones that might work in a pinch for little kids if you have little kids in both the second and third rows since you’ll have to lose most leg room in the second row to have any at all in the third). And a bunch of others cam out within the last year to compete with them in this category, but are all too small and sit too low. I’ve test driven most of these – Tesla Model X, Model Y, Mustang Mach-E, BMW iX, etc. – and they just aren’t tall enough or have enough usable storage. The Model X comes closest on storage but is not worth $125K.
So still waiting. The Rivian on paper looks the most promising so far but it could be years before someone who didn’t pre-order could get one. The new Hummer technically qualifies but is excessive in every way – cost, weight, etc. Holding out some hope for the new Volvo but that’s probably not out for 2 years and then who knows how long to actually get one. Just hope our current old vehicles can hold out for the real SUV’s to finally show up in the market.
If you don’t mind a van instead of an SUV for a roomy three row vehicle, watch for the VW ID.Buzz (the US version is supposed to be longer than the EU version that most photos are of and is supposed to have a third row).
Yep, cool concept. Looks interesting. The issues for me would be expected range is 260. I consider a claimed range of 300+ our bright line. Given that is optimal range in good weather with a mix of highway and street (where electronics perform better due to more regenerative braking), it wouldn’t work for us. We have a place we travel frequently which is ~250 miles away. We usually don’t stop or stop just for 5-10 minutes for the bathroom and possibly gas (if we didn’t fill up first). It’s almost all highway. We want something that can make it from garage to garage for that trip. Also, preferably something with a taller clearance for mild off road.
The Volvo electric SUVs are very nice and everyone we know who has one loves it. More than several. @citivas are the current Volvo electric SUVs too small? No third seat, but they are pretty roomy, in my opinion.
I was referring to Volvo’s upcoming all-new all-electric SUV, the Embla, as opposed to the PHEV hybrids of the VC-60 and VC-90 (though the XC-90 would be the right size and is what I have now). Unclear if it will be a 2024 model released in 2023 or released in 2024.
The VC40 Recharge is way too small for us. We still occasionally need three rows, but more often we simply simply need the storage space when the third row is down. Our XC-90 often barely fits everything we need to take the the place 250 miles away, and occasionally we have had to take the minivan because the XC-90 wasn’t enough. It’s the minivan that the new electric would replace. Not sad to lose the van which isn’t great mechanically. But its bottomless pit of storage capacity has come in handy many times.
We just bought an XC40 (not recharge) and love it.
The range of the recharge is our issue. We need 200 on a regular basis, frequently in less than ideal conditions. So stated 220 or so just doesn’t work for us.
I used to be at the stage we needed a real 3 row SUV. But at this point it’s usually 1-3 people riding in it. So we’re able get by with a smaller vehicle, which is easier to handle, and a heck of a lot cheaper!
Another van option is the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid, which may work if it is mostly used for short distance local driving within its 32 mile EV range, but can drive the 250 mile trip on 30 miles per gallon of gasoline.
Minivans are sneaky good in this respect. Agree with you that they are not necessarily great to drive, and you won’t win any “cool” points, but if you need three rows and significant storage behind the third row, they get the job done. Substance not form!
We were excited to downsize in cars. We just got a used Chevy Volt PHEV to replace our Honda Odyssey that tried to kill my husband by unexpectedly engaging the ABS without his foot on the brake at highway speeds. We haven’t completely gotten rid of it yet, but disabled the ABS and right now he uses it occasionally for hauling stuff to the dump, but we don’t drive it regularly.
We travel pretty light and can get everything we need for a week at the beach (including bed linens, etc) in our Chevy Bolt EV. (The Volt is our backup second car and the Bolt is our main car.)
Getting ready to use the Bolt to move our D22 into college. She will also be taking her car, too, so should be more than enough room, but we gotta take two cars because we gotta get home somehow.
I decided to get rid of the van when I bought my second Volvo sedan. I didn’t need a people hauler anymore. I do miss the higher ride of that car (a Mazda MPV which I really liked), but I’m done with larger vehicles. That’s why I’m patiently waiting for the Subaru Soltera to become more available. It’s all electric and a partnership with Toyota. It’s a smaller SUV size…which I think will be great.
The other trend I don’t like in many of the best new EV’s in lack of CarPlay (or Android Auto) support. We use this all the time now and it is our daily method of navigation and music. I don’t care how good a car’s native navigation supposedly is, if it’s not Waze I’m not interested. Telsa has never supported it and now Rivian has copied them in also not supporting it. And the latest Volvo’s that use the new native Google Car UI (which is not the same as Android Auto) doesn’t support CarPlay (or even, ironically Android Auto) either. So you get Google Maps native in the car but no ability to use other navigation options on the screen. Fewer consumer choices is not progress.
I also don’t like that the Tesla doesn’t allow for satellite-based SXM, and only can do it as a streaming service with a data subscription. I think Rivian is similar. Tesla’s lack of a true blind spot alert on the side mirror (having a video image on the center screen is not remotely as useful) is also not great, and it’s annoying they don’t have a true 360 view for parking. These wouldn’t stop me from getting a vehicle that checked all the other boxes but for their price point we shouldn’t need trade offs that are in far more economical cars these days.
That Mazda MPV was seriously my favorite car/van. It had 3 rows of seats but not too big. I loved that car. It’s too bad that minivans weren’t that popular and every Mom wanted a big SUV instead of a minivan. Because minivans are great!