Auto Transportation Blog

For a long time the minivan was the staple of the American family – if you had 2.5 kids and a dog, chances are you had a minivan as well. They were versatile and could haul a lot of people – and stuff – and were great on long trips. But the minivan may not be around for long, according to an article in USA Today, as many companies, including Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Hyundai are abandoning their minivan lines for the newer, chicer Crossover vehicles.

Crossovers are a mix between a minivan and a sport utility vehicle, and to be honest it makes a lot of sense. With a crossover you get the cargo room and the power of a sport utility vehicle with the carrying capacity of a minivan – it’s smaller than both and generally handle better than both as well.

Currently Nissan is the only company of those who dropped their minivan lines that is planning to bring it back at some point, though Toyota, who has yet to embrace the crossover fully and drop their minivans, is expecting to see a strong surge of minivan sales in the next year as they become more scarce, and Honda too is looking into the future of minivans. Minivans are perfect for families with multiple children as well as grandparents, though the main reason that the minivan is being dropped by several major auto makers is the fact that most minivans are gas guzzlers, while the crossover design features much better gas mileage.

The auto transport industry will be seeing many more crossovers being shipped in the near future, that’s for sure.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Auto Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.