A Guide to Hybrid Vans & Hybrid Minivans

For years, soccer moms have been clamoring for a hybrid minivan. After all, who is more sensitive to fuel economy and gas prices than the legions of heroic parents hauling kids and groceries throughout suburbia? Despite the pent-up demand, it will be a few years—at best—before a hybrid minivan is available in the United States.

Tens of thousands of consumers have petitioned Toyota, the hybrid leader, to bring the hybrid minivan to the US, but the company has ignored the demands of all those parents and their pint-sized passengers. (The Toyota Highlander Hybrid is the only seven-seater hybrid for now.)

Chrysler has hinted at the possibility of adding a hybrid system to a family-oriented people-mover like the minivan. The Chrysler minivan, a bread and butter vehicle for the company since 1984, has never been known as a paragon of advanced technology—other than cupholders and other consumer-pleasing tech like power side doors and Stow-and-Go seats.

Another option is to drop a diesel engine in the Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan. Chrysler already sells its European minivans with 2.8-liter diesels, although those engines are not emissions-compliant for the United States. Also, a diesel-minivan might not have the ring of green family-friendliness that a hybrid minivan would carry in suburbia.

So, for the time being, we have a E85 Dodge Caravan, an expensive electric conversion, conventional wagons, and...a waiting game.

List of Hybrid Vans