Family cars | Ysäri families got excited about the car model, which is now something completely different

For electric driving moving families have a nut to crack: what kind of car can they fit with their belongings.

In the past, the solution for a large family was a minivan, a tall and wide box, where style was secondary.

The French car manufacturer Renault was creating a phenomenon. First there was a big minivan from the 80s Spacewho in the following decade got a younger cousin named Scenic. The latter is said to have created its own subspecies, the mid-size minivan.

Now the Scenic is moving into the electric age, and everything has changed.

All-electric Scenic The introductory song was broadcast in Vantaa to the amazement of the media. You couldn't drive the car, but you could slam doors and wear seats. The car looks futuristic with straight lines and angles.

“When there have been new versions of the Scenic, it has always changed according to the situation. In the previous version, it was already clear in the direction of the suvwhen the people and the market wanted it,” says Renault's product manager Tuomas Erma.

Suv refers to the English abbreviation of SUV, and that's what the Scenic looks like today. However, Erma uses the term “family car”.

Traditional the minivan is fading away as SUVs ate up its market. As recently as 2010, about eight percent of new cars were minivans, while the following year their share had shrunk to 1.6 percent. Doesn't anyone want them anymore?

“Demand is driven by what is offered, and that demand clearly doesn't exist when manufacturers don't make them,” Erma reflects.

Next comes the technical argument that speaks against bulky electronic family boxes: consumption.

“When the cars are not unnecessarily high, we can reduce air resistance.”

Changes are also made under the car. For example, the Scenic's battery is drained low. It frees up miles to be used in the cabin.

Scenic is available in two different battery sizes, the larger of which should travel about 600 kilometers in good conditions. It is an optimistic estimate, as many other brands calculate their operating range to be 400–500 kilometers.

When it's freezing in your home country, you should take the air out of travel forecasts. The car also has a screen that shows different distance estimates depending on the driving style.

The back of the Scenic has good legroom. Picture: Esa Juntunen / HS

Although Scenic no longer wants to be identified as a minivan, it has to be spacious in the back. There is just under 28 centimeters of legroom, meaning that passengers can roll their thighs without difficulty. The floor of the electric car is completely flat.

There is 545 liters of luggage space in the back, which can be tripled by folding down the seats.

However, competitors also have such facilities. And there are plenty of them. There are a lot of electric SUVs around 50,000 euros available.

The cheapest Scenic can be had for a generous 43,000 euros, but tons more can be added to the equipment. In the same euro scale, Finland's most popular electric car, Tesla, is lurking Model Yand Volkswagen's electric SUVs.

The competition is fierce: both of the aforementioned competing brands recently dropped their prices.

These are manufactured in China. Xpeng X9 minivan in the photo. Picture: XPeng Inc.

Where the electronic buzz around minivans disappeared? To China.

There, unknown to Finns, Xpeng and Li Auto are fighting for the money of well-to-do families. To write about it South China Morning Post -magazine.

“The competition between these two companies in the minivan market is interesting to watch, because consumers are increasingly worried about the economy and job prospects,” commented the founder of the Cn-EV Post website, which compiles electric car statistics, to the newspaper Phate Zhang.

At least a couple of electric minivans of the Maxus brand have come from China to Finland. Voyah, which recently started here, also hints that it will bring one to our market.

Paradoxically In Europe, many SUVs would easily meet the definition of a minivan. Such is the case, for example, available as a Kia seven-seater EV9 electric car.

It seems that many cars are forcibly pushed under the SUV image. For example, the previously mentioned French ancestor of minivans, the Espace, is now available as a hybrid, but according to the website it is “suv”.

As the French would say, the smallest minivan is passé