Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid - PHEV minivan

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cwerdna

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http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/11/2017-chryser-pacifica-hybrid-minivan-detroit-official/

Chrysler's just calling it a hybrid despite it being a PHEV. Supposedly has up to 30 miles of range and a 16-kWh. Finally we'll have a hybrid minivan in the US. There have been non-plugin hybrid minivans in Japan for ages.
 
Now that I think about it more, probably a very good reason for it existing is to improve their light truck CAFE average since IIRC, FCA's CAFE numbers are pretty low.
 
Full $7,500 tax credit available because of battery size.
http://insideevs.com/chrysler-pacifica-hybrid-plug-in-minivan-with-30-miles-range-80-mpge/
 
Plus they are quoting 2 hours for a full battery charge, which means it's at least got a 6.6kW charger. If you like minivans, this thing looks like it's going to check a hell of a lot of boxes. And all they had to get rid of was _second_ row seat stowing. The third row still folds flat. There's so much room to play with in these larger cars. And with the full government rebate, I doubt the plugin will even cost that much more.
 
It does have the 'magic' 30 miles of EV range; would wonder why it can be done with a big and bulky minivan but not most other makes and models (so far at least) ... of course no 'real world' testing yet

We actually owned 3 Chrysler minivan's over the years (two Dodge Grand Caravan's; a '90 and '97 and then a T&C 'clone' -- an '09 VW Routan that was a bit of a nightmare in the end); the early years burned up their transmissions; first under warranty, 2nd just past warranty but both survived over 100K miles each before starting to rust out. The T&C clone had lots of electrical gremlins that required towing it to the dealer 3X; just too many 'powered' items (seats, side doors, etc.) and the radio/GPS, etc. head unit (UCONNECT) was just terrible and would immobilize the car -- did love the remote start in cold weather; Napa leather seats and HUGE cargo capacity but agree if you were to add an EV drivetrain to the mix not sure what you would end up with. Perhaps the Fiat 'partnership' has worked through some issues but this is not something on my list --- unloaded my '09 after only 3 years and VW stopped offering them a year or two later as they probably had enough (their dealerships weren't crazy about them either).
 
TomT said:
Yep, the last manufacturer from whom I'd by a vehicle! The worst reliability in the industry...

LeftieBiker said:
It's a shame we'll be getting it from Chrysler/Fiat.
I'm very excited to see this car announced. Sounds like the perfect replacement for our current Dodge Grand Caravan. We love our Caravan BTW. 143,000 miles. Have had little trouble with the drive train. Have had some past issues with power sliding doors and the drivers side window, but otherwise has been fairly reliable. Drives well, handles pretty well and has enormous cargo capacity. Four of us camped in it recently. I've carried full 4x8 sheets of plywood in it. Recently built a simple bike carrier that lets us put 4 bicycles INSIDE the van, upright, still with room for plenty of stuff. We did a weeklong trip taking our bikes along.

30 miles range is the minimum to make it useful in my book but it meets that criteria. The panoramic sunroof looks awesome (spoiling), adaptive cruise control sounds like a neat gadget.

I'm curious to see how much of a premium they'll charge over a non PHEV minivan.

Also found the Budd.E to be interesting, but looks like a concept vehicle, not close to reality. Lots of talk and woefully little action from VW. They have bigger issues these days.
 
LeftieBiker said:
It's a shame we'll be getting it from Chrysler/Fiat.

It's a shame I kind of like it LOL.

Agree with most of the posts up top though that from a company with that record on reliability, but that also means that resale values will probably suck and year end clearance deals will be good too.
 
redLEAF said:
It does have the 'magic' 30 miles of EV range; would wonder why it can be done with a big and bulky minivan but not most other makes and models (so far at least) ... of course no 'real world' testing yet...
Chrysler actually does have some experience with a plug-in hybrid minivan. Probably paved the way for the new platform Why Not a Plug-In Hybrid Minivan?
 
KeiJidosha said:
redLEAF said:
It does have the 'magic' 30 miles of EV range; would wonder why it can be done with a big and bulky minivan but not most other makes and models (so far at least) ... of course no 'real world' testing yet...
Chrysler actually does have some experience with a plug-in hybrid minivan. Probably paved the way for the new platform Why Not a Plug-In Hybrid Minivan?

OK, small one-off test; only 22 miles though but perhaps the new platform saves some weight, etc. -- low 20's is what a fair amount of the latest PHEV SUV seem to get so perhaps the 30 miles claimed is very optimistic --- I would wonder how reliable these ended up being?
 
redLEAF said:
OK, small one-off test; only 22 miles though but perhaps the new platform saves some weight, etc. -- low 20's is what a fair amount of the latest PHEV SUV seem to get so perhaps the 30 miles claimed is very optimistic --- I would wonder how reliable these ended up being?

That early one had a 12 kWh battery. This one has 16. 30 miles seems entirely reasonable to me. If they open up the usable capacity a bit more than GM did with the first Volt, I'd say 30 is on the lower end of what you should expect.
 
pkulak said:
redLEAF said:
OK, small one-off test; only 22 miles though but perhaps the new platform saves some weight, etc. -- low 20's is what a fair amount of the latest PHEV SUV seem to get so perhaps the 30 miles claimed is very optimistic --- I would wonder how reliable these ended up being?

That early one had a 12 kWh battery. This one has 16. 30 miles seems entirely reasonable to me. If they open up the usable capacity a bit more than GM did with the first Volt, I'd say 30 is on the lower end of what you should expect.

Perhaps this will be a change where you'll get MORE than the advertised EV use as you say but most of the range estimates that have been provided by car mfg's have been disappointing (i.e., 'ideal' conditions, etc.)
 
redLEAF said:
Perhaps this will be a change where you'll get MORE than the advertised EV use as you say but most of the range estimates that have been provided by car mfg's have been disappointing (i.e., 'ideal' conditions, etc.)

Really? Manufacturers just cite EPA, from what I can tell. Chevy said 35 miles for the Volt forever, but people routinely got low 40s. Chevy is saying the Bolt will do 200, but with 60 kWh it should be dead easy to get 220. Audi says 16 for the E-Tron, which seems pretty spot on. I'd wager the final EPA range will be 30-32.
 
pkulak said:
redLEAF said:
Perhaps this will be a change where you'll get MORE than the advertised EV use as you say but most of the range estimates that have been provided by car mfg's have been disappointing (i.e., 'ideal' conditions, etc.)

Really? Manufacturers just cite EPA, from what I can tell. Chevy said 35 miles for the Volt forever, but people routinely got low 40s. Chevy is saying the Bolt will do 200, but with 60 kWh it should be dead easy to get 220. Audi says 16 for the E-Tron, which seems pretty spot on. I'd wager the final EPA range will be 30-32.

They cite EPA now. A few years back, they cited the much easier LA4 cycle results. It sort of makes sense in that LA4 is the cycle against which the CARB credits are calculated. But it is much farther from real world than EPA 5-cycle results. It was on the LA4 cycle that the 2011-2015 Leafs got a range of 100 miles.

That said, I would be surprised if Chrysler backtracked and quoted anything other than EPA. That would really bite them when they have to print out the Monroney stickers. And with a 16kWh battery, it's likely to get 30 EPA miles.
 
pkulak said:
redLEAF said:
Perhaps this will be a change where you'll get MORE than the advertised EV use as you say but most of the range estimates that have been provided by car mfg's have been disappointing (i.e., 'ideal' conditions, etc.)

Really? Manufacturers just cite EPA, from what I can tell. Chevy said 35 miles for the Volt forever, but people routinely got low 40s. Chevy is saying the Bolt will do 200, but with 60 kWh it should be dead easy to get 220. Audi says 16 for the E-Tron, which seems pretty spot on. I'd wager the final EPA range will be 30-32.

I actually attended and drove an A3 e-tron at an event Audi had in downtown Chicago a while back, even the Audi e-tron reps thought more like 10 to may be 13 miles ... with the premium they wanted for it (just like the BMW X5 40e at 13 EV miles as well) hard to justify ... a true 30 miles in 3 out of 4 seasons would be a definite plus if its real.
 
This is a significant new offering that hopefully represents the start of a trend. As Bob Lutz pointed out, if you want customers to see value in technology that reduces fuel costs/consumption it's better applied to larger vehicles where the savings are more substantial rather than smaller cars that are already pretty economical like most of the other EV/PHEV offerings to date. Plus the larger vehicles have fat margins that can better absorb the increased costs, as opposed to the low end where price sensitive buyers hold the Volt and Leaf up against the low cost entries like Cruze, Versa, what have you.
 
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/12/chrysler-pacifica-hybrid-details-exclusive/

In the last paragraph they say it has a 6.6 kW onboard charger. Previous reports said it charges in 2 hrs so there's no way they have unlocked the full 16kWh of the battery if those numbers are correct.

The iMIEV I belive unlocked the full 16kWh and is EPA rated at 62. I think it would be fair to say that this minivan will be able to get more than half the range on the same 16kWh but if it will top off from empty in 2 hrs (even if that's rounding down the time, or talking about from a low SOC) I think it would be reasonable to say there's about 12-13 kWh available and also reasonable to guess that there's no more than 14 kWh.

At 12kWh available it would have to get 2.5 miles/kWh on the EPA test to get 30 miles. IIRC the leaf gets 3.9 mile/kWh on the EPA test so I think it will be able to do 30, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the EPA number is a 28 or 29.
 
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