First hybrid minivan rolls out
PRICE: Chrysler’s 2017 Pacifica Hybrid may earn you kudos, but it won’t pay for itself
The math on Chrysler’s 2017 Pacifica Hybrid minivan is not so simple — and not just the figures on price, but fuel economy and range, too. Let’s get our pencils out.
First, let’s circle all the things Chrysler got right with the world’s first hybrid minivan.
While the exterior might be no more fetching than a fridge, the inside is a knock-your-socks off chamber of leather-bound sumptuousness. Stout seats with contrasting piping and good stitching, a mix of attractive colours, ample room, enough power outlets and USB ports to command a space station. Nooks, crannies and cubbies galore. It’s the minivan I wish I had as a young dad.
It drives remarkably well, too — quieter than the company’s flagship 300 sedan. A 3.6-litre Pentastar V6 is joined at the hip with a 16.0-kWh lithium-ion battery pack for total combined horsepower of 260. So far so good.
Instrumentation and layout edges out the competition, too, offering a 7-inch multi-coloured digital display in the centre cluster, flanked by two gauges, one for gasoline use, the other showing power consumption; I wish there was a stand-alone tach for the engine. The customizable display uses huge fonts to make things easy to see and read at a glance. Menus are easy to navigate, too.
On the dash, the 8.4-inch Uconnect infotainment systems remains one of the best in the business, with sharp graphics and a clear design. Even the rotary shifter isn’t as bad as some say; after some use, it feels perfectly natural. Visibility is very good.
From a standstill, the Pacifica Hybrid is almost everything you would get in a Pacifica Limited, save for the Stow-’n’-Go seats that have been replaced by captain chairs (that are removable) to accommodate the electronics and lithium-ion battery pack in the floor, where such a low centre of gravity can help handling duties. Navigation, power sliding doors and liftgate, plus two 10-inch seatback touchscreens loaded with games all bring some magic to this wagon.
But let’s look at the economics. With dead batteries, I plugged the van into the 120V outlet of my house.
Unfortunately, the cord was four feet short for my outlet, so I needed an extension. And why can’t these cords be self winding, like vacuum cleaners, so we don’t have to uncoil and coil them? We need Stow-’n’-Go cords! Anyway, according to the Pacifica’s computer, from plug-in to full charge would require 13 hours and 41 minutes from my 120V service, and about two hours with a 240V outlet.
Those hours, at a peak charge rate of 6.6kW to fill the battery to about 90 per cent capacity charge in my off-peak rate of eight cents, plus power delivery costs (the “transmission” portion that often makes up more than half the bill, so 4 cents minimum) would require at least 12 cents per kWh, and I would need 13.2 kWh to fill it. That means about $1.60 per night, or $11 a week, charging in off-peak hours, but double that for on-peak, assuming a depleted battery each day. Let’s round that up to about $50/month in hydro, because few will be able to perfectly time offpeak rates, although some will be able to siphon hydro at work.
That’s pretty cheap mobility if we could rely on electricity alone and achieve the 57 km of range the Pacifica’s computer said we would get on a full charge; combined with the gas engine, the full range was 659 km. But in my two simple and short errands, I depleted the battery by 29 kilometres and ended up using the gas engine for six.
Mind you, I was running the heated seats and heated steering wheel and it was below zero outside; so in summer or warmer months, a truer range will probably be closer to 50 or higher.
Nevertheless, my average fuel economy as registered by the Pacifica’s computer was 9.3 L/100 km in 90 minutes of errands. My range now displayed 556 km, some 103 less than when I started even though I only travelled 35.
Over the life of this van so far, the average displayed gasoline consumption showed 10.7 L/100 km. Of the van’s 3,433 km to date, 589 were battery alone — or 17 per cent of the total (though at least 1,000 of that was highway).
The neat thing about the Pacifica Hybrid, however, is that in pure-electric mode, it will — if you accelerate gradually enough — stay in electric mode well past 120 km/h. Electricity is also recaptured through braking.
And on a full charge, the engine doesn’t jump in under heavy acceleration, when the silent whoosh of takeoff is remarkably pleasing. When the engine does kick in, all kinds of noises and sounds sometimes emanate from underneath, but not always, and the brake can be heard making a clicking sound when activated.
Still, it doesn’t detract from the pleasing driving experience and strong performance.
The bigger question comes down to the Pacifica Hybrid’s overall price, even with rebates.
In provinces with no provincial incentives to buy hybrid vehicles, the MSRP is $56,495, plus freight and taxes. Ouch.
B.C., Ontario and Quebec offer incentives ($5,000 in B.C., $14,000 in Ontario, $8,000 in Quebec) that come off the purchase (or lease) price — but in Ontario and Quebec, the rebates come off only after all applicable costs and taxes have been applied.
In B.C., the rebate comes off before tax. That means Ontario buyers, with the incentive factored in, are looking at $49,839 including tax, and in Quebec it’s $56,995 including tax; in B.C., it’s $57,674 after tax.
Keep in mind there will still be freight and fees on top of that, too. Similarly equipped competitor vans can also top $50,000. The closest similarly equipped gas Pacifica is the Limited edition, which starts at $52,995.
So even if you do save several hundred dollars a year on fuel, it may be difficult to ever recoup the higher cost of the Pacifica hybrid.
The payback period all depends on how much the van gets used and how it’s driven. The take-away for the Pacifica Hybrid is that buyers immediately get more content for less money than they would buying a similarly equipped, non-hybrid Pacifica.
Whether the math works depends as much on what a buyer wants in a van as the van itself.