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Customer LoginsSame-Day Analysis: NAIAS 2016: Chrysler takes wraps off all-new Pacifica minivan
Chrysler is replacing the Town & Country and, eventually, Dodge Caravan minivans with an all-new minivan, and is reviving the Pacifica nameplate. The new minivan takes a bow at the 2016 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and is due to go on sale in the US late in the first quarter.
IHS Automotive perspective
- Significance: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' (FCA) Chrysler brand has chosen the NAIAS as the backdrop to introduce its latest minivan, including a plug-in hybrid variant and reviving the Pacifica nameplate.
- Implications: Chrysler is the company that essentially invented the minivan more than 30 years ago. The minivan segment has fallen from 7.9% of the US market in the peak year of 2000 to less than 4% in 2014. However, the segment is forecasted to account for about 500,000 units in US volume in 2017, and to remain above 400,000 units throughout the forecast period.
- Outlook: Chrysler's new minivan is loaded with technology and safety equipment, increasing the technology availability in the segment and bringing an aged product in step with the current US market. However, as FCA plans to eventually drop the Dodge variant, the Chrysler product will bear the full weight of the company's minivan franchise.
Presenting the minivan to journalists ahead of the NAIAS held in Detroit, United States, on 11−24 January, the head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' (FCA) Dodge and Chrysler brands, Tim Kuniskis, said that the company had opted to introduce its latest minivan with a different name, the Pacifica, to avoid preconceived notions on the Town & Country badge. The company is unapologetic about the product being a true minivan, with Kuniskis saying, "It's got sliding doors, it's a minivan," but the automaker believes the name change will communicate that the company is offering something new and fresh.
Supporting that approach, the new product has been designed to be a modern minivan to appeal to a modern family, as well as to brand loyalist customers. Key elements of the new product are efficiency, with a hybrid variant and the most-powerful V6 in segment; a new platform with claimed best-in-class noise, vibration and harshness (NVH); improved comfort and convenience, with easier access to the second and third row seats, while keeping the popular stow-and-go feature; improved safety; and increased technology.
Chrysler's development of the vehicle incorporates smart, family-friendly features, including the ability to open the side doors and the tailgate by running the foot across a sensor below the door (a feature seen first in the utility vehicle segment), while also having a button in the door handle which releases the door to make it easier for younger children to open, even if the power doors are not selected. While the Pacifica does not receive the third-generation UConnect at launch, introduced at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show last week, it does up the ante on optional rear-seat entertainment, with UConnect Theater. UConnect Theater offers two high-definition 10-inch screens for movies, built-in games or connecting personal devices to surf the Internet and stream content. For a family vehicle that may well see operation by teenage drivers, Chrysler has on optional KeySense programmable key fob which places limits on speed and audio volume, mutes audio if front seatbelts are not buckled, allows blocking of SiriusXM channels, and prevents safety features like Forward Collision Warning-Plus and ParkSense rear park assist from being disabled.
2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Image courtesy of FCA. |
New available safety features include parallel and perpendicular parking assist, a 360-camera system for a bird's-eye view, adaptive cruise control with stop and hold, forward collision warning for applying brakes for the driver if an impact is imminent, and lane-departure warning and assist (using a torque input through the electronic power steering to assist the driver with corrective action if lane departure is imminent).
In terms of the platform, this generation vehicle incorporates the stow-and-go feature into the floor pan for non-hybrid models; with the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), that space holds the batteries. FCA claims a 200-pound weight reduction on the standard V6 model, which mates the second-generation Pentastar V6 to the 9-speed automatic. With a longer wheelbase and wheels out to the corner, the Pacifica boasts a 200-cubic-feet interior volume and improved third-row seating headroom, and shoulder and leg room. Chrysler says the new shape also delivers class-leading aerodynamics − and still looks like a minivan.
FCA head of design Ralph Gilles told the media that Chrysler made an effort to better align the Pacifica with the changed mental image of a family, looking to provide an attractive package rather than something which parents suffer through. However, design also strove to "respect the packaging" and continue to solve problems that families might not even know they had. The new minivan strives to offer a stylish, dynamic and energetic package. The exterior takes the family look of the 200 sedan with a notable amount bright moulding and chrome to highlight the vehicle's lines and provide a premium feel to the exterior. The hybrid model takes a specific grille. Inside, the designers have worked to support an emotional component to purchasing the minivan. The interior design accentuates the width, with a muscular feel under soft surfaces and highly detailed, described by Chrysler as "surface under tension". What this means to a potential Pacifica buyer is a significant improvement in interior materials, as well as much improved usability.
2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Image courtesy of FCA. |
Kuniskis indicated that Chrysler will focus on the "hybrid" element of the PHEV, and will not give as much attention on the "plug-in" element, when it comes to pitching the product to consumers. Instead, Chrysler will focus on the efficiency and benefits, looking to avoid association with customers' range anxiety over EVs. Rather, the marketing is expected to focus on the 80mpg-e rating; the vehicle is expected to deliver about 30 miles on electricity alone, a respectable number for a vehicle of this size. The hybrid Pacifica will be launched after the gasoline (petrol) version.
Outlook and implications
Chrysler's new minivan is loaded with technology and safety equipment, increasing the technology availability for the segment and bringing an aged product in step with the current US market. However, as FCA plans to eventually drop the Dodge variant, the Chrysler product will bear the full weight of the company's minivan franchise.
While the minivan segment peaked in 2000, according to IHS data, Chrysler-branded minivan sales peaked in 2001 at 188,007 units. FCA reported sales of 93,848 Chrysler-branded minivans in 2015. The minivan segment has fallen from 7.9% of the market in 2000 to less than 3.3% in 2014. Over that time period, however, the number of entries has also fallen and the Chrysler Town & Country's share of the minivan market has increased.
The Pacifica name was used on one of the first crossover utility vehicles in the US market, though it did not survive the dissolution of the DaimlerChrysler relationship or the recession. Launched in 2003, the first Pacifica's best year was in 2005 when 90,712 units were sold. The model offered an SUV shape, unibody platform, and seating for six or seven, but it was pulled from Chrysler's line-up in 2008.
2017 Chrysler Pacifica. Image courtesy of FCA |
Going forward, the new Pacifica will essentially replace both the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivan products in showrooms. It is not likely that the Pacifica's US sales will achieve the combined volume of these two products. For 2015, the combined US sales volume of the two minivans was 190,989 units, according to FCA's reporting. IHS Automotive forecasts the replacement product is forecasted to achieve US sales of nearly 158,000 units in 2017, the first full year of production; global sales are forecasted to reach about 183,500 units in 2017 and 202,000 units in 2018.
We also forecast that the Chrysler product will see an increased share of the shrinking minivan market. In 2017, we forecast the Pacifica will see about a 31% share of the US minivan market, which will include only six entries (Chrysler Pacifica, Honda Odyssey, Kia Sedona, Nissan Quest, Toyota Sienna, as well as some volume for continuing production of the current Dodge Caravan). While the new Pacifica and Odyssey, as well as continuation of the current Caravan, are expected to push an uptick in minivan sales in 2017, the segment is largely a declining one. Chrysler appears positioned to weather the decline relatively well in terms of market share.
The Pacifica has potential to outsell the Odyssey and Sienna in this new form, even with an all-new Odyssey also due to be revealed in 2016. In volume terms, we forecast the Pacifica's US sales will reach about 157,500 units in 2017 and nearly 168,000 units in 2018. Among the risk factors for the strategy, however, is that it depends on the company's ability to convert a high rate of Dodge Caravan buyers to Chrysler Pacifica buyers. We forecast Dodge will keep the Caravan in production until August 2017; for the near term, this will enable a lower-priced entry product, provide fleet volume, and help address the issue that the Caravan is FCA's second-best-selling product in Canada. Eventually, however, the Pacifica may need to develop a model that can address the lowest-price-point buyer in order to support the maintaining of volume. However, if the entry product is not profitable the company may forgo that volume in an effort to maintain profit margin. On paper, the strategy may sound viable; changing the view of consumers, used to inexpensive minivans from the Dodge, may be more difficult.
The platform is also due to be used for a Chrysler-based full-size utility vehicle, which will help plug the volume hole left by dropping the Dodge companion minivan, and do so with a product better aligned with today's market demands. Further down the road, we forecast that the next-generation Chrysler 300 will move to this front-drive platform, while the Dodge Charger/Challenger twins remain on an evolution of the LX/LY program and rear drive. It is notable that the minivan's platform is protected for an all-wheel-drive application, though none is planned for the minivan itself. As a result, while volumes for minivans overall are largely declining, FCA is forecasted to see the platform's volume exceed 320,000 units per annum in the coming decade.
About this article
The above article is from IHS Automotive Same-Day Analysis of automotive news, events and trends, and is a deliverable of the World Markets Automotive Service. The service averages thirty stories per day and also provides competitor and country intelligence. Get a free trial.