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End of the $25,000 minivan?
Published October 10, 2016
2015 Dodge Grand Caravan American Value Package (Dodge)
Get them while you can, bargain hunters.
When Dodge ditches the Grand Caravan next year, it will mark the end of the sub-$25G minivan, reports Automotive News.
The Grand Caravan, currently offered in a seven-passenger American Value package with a starting price of $22,390, will be replaced in showrooms by a new crossover for the 2017 model year, while Chrysler’s Town & Country will try to hold the fort in the minivan segment on its own.
Chrysler Brand President and CEO Al Gardiner says the all-new Town & Country will drop its starting price from $29,995 today to around $26,000, which is roughly what the Kia Sedona and Nissan Quest currently sell for.
Gardiner says under-$25,000 “is a very difficult price point to get if you're going to build the technology, the content, the vehicle, the platform that we want to build."
The smaller, more commercial five-passenger Ram Promaster City Wagon is new this year at $25,125, and the similar Ford Transit Connect Wagon costs $25,705. The compact six-passenger Mazda5 is priced at $22,060, but is expected to be discontinued and also replaced by a crossover next year.
After falling from over one and a quarter-million annual sales at the turn of the century to less than half that number in 2012, as Ford and GM left the segment and buyers switched to CUVs, minivan sales rebounded to 900,000 in 2014.
The new Chrysler Town & Country is expected to hit showrooms in mid-2016 with a 75 mpg plug-in hybrid version in the lineup.
https://www.foxnews.com/auto/end-of-the-25000-minivan