The debate is on. Some in the car industry believe that minivans are facing the Grim Reaper that compacted the station wagon years ago. Others, more optimistic, argue that the minivan needs simply to go through an image makeover like said station wagons did when the Dodge Magnum first debuted to get over the slump in sales.
Slump? How about abyss. Sales of minivans in 2006 fell 11.7 percent through November to 896,458 units compared to 1,015,392 units in 2005. Closing estimates for 2006 indicate that minivan sales will miss the 1 million mark for the first time since 1992.
The Detroit Three especially suffered. Chrysler leads in sales of and yet sales of its Town and Country minivan fell 10.1 percent to 148,228 units through November and the Dodge Caravan dived 5.1 percent to 197,045.
Sales of import brand minivans went up slightly through November 2006. Gains were experienced by Toyota (the Sienna upticked 0.6 percent to 147,179 units) and Honda (the Odyssey sales figures nudged upward 2.4 percent to 161,888 units). But they did not go up enough to off set the fall in the sale of domestic brands.
General Motors and Ford have already dropped out of the minivan market and are turning to the CUV. The other automakers continue doggedly on. Chrysler, for example, will be showing its next generation of minivans at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January. The new vehicles are scheduled to go on sale in the fall and are expected to do good enough to revitalize the minivan category. Hyundai introduced its Entourage in 2006. Kia is expected to release its new Sedona in the U.S. in 2009 where it will be joined by Volkswagen which will be selling a version of Chrysler's next generation minivans.
Our take? To minivan or not to minivan. That is the question.