Ford just launched a hybrid minivan, but you can’t have it in the U.S.

Yeah, Ford calls it a “sports activity vehicle,” a category you encounter when you look into how automobiles are marketed in Europe. But if it looks, smells, and drives like a minivan, then, guess what: the new Ford S-MAX Hybrid is just that—a bleeping hybrid minivan.

The new, seven-passenger vehicle is the first electrified version of the S-MAX, a minivan model that Ford has marketed in Europe since 2006. It boasts a 2.5-liter gasoline engine, a 1.1 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery powering the electric motor, and fuel efficiency just shy of 6.4 liters burned per 100 kilometers traveled (that’s equivalent to about 37 mpg), according to a press release from Ford of Europe.

If this new hybrid minivan interests you and you live in the U.S., however, you’re out of luck. Announced just this month, the S-MAX Hybrid won’t be marketed on the left side of the pond.

But why not?

Granted, minivans are a category of vehicle that has fallen into disfavor in the U.S., where the market currently prefers crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. That’s why the number of minivan models currently marketed in the U.S. has, according to USA Today, dropped to only five: the Chrysler Pacifica, the Dodge Grand Caravan, the Honda Odyssey, the Kia Sedona, and the Toyota Sienna.

Each of these models, except for the Kia Sedona, is available as a hybrid, which is now the only powertrain configuration offered for the Toyota Sienna.

The continued existence of these five models—even amidst constant speculation that still more models will be discontinued—indicate that the minivan vehicle format continues to have a following in the U.S., albeit a small one. 

Good Car Bad Car reports that only 272,052 new minivans were sold on the U.S. market in 2020, making up only 1.9 percent of total U.S. automotive sales of 14,665,787 last year. 

So, no—the minivan is now far from a popular vehicle category.

But if you have a family, a frequent need to haul a lot of stuff, and maybe a pet or two or more, it’s hard to beat the space, utility, and flexibility that a minivan can offer. It’s a vehicle format that combines a lot of the comfort and drivability of a family car with the hauling capability of a truck, plus the sheer room for passengers that a three-row seating configuration affords.

I speak from experience, having owned a Ford Windstar for 12 years.

However, from that same personal experience, I fully understand why those strengths may also be the limitations of the minivan category. It’s a vehicle that makes sense for a lot of people when they are in a certain lifestage.

But once a family reaches the point where the kids are older, with less need for carpooling to youth sports, less interest in full-family roadtrips, and generally fewer of the other hallmarks of the suburban lifestyle for which these vehicles are a great fit, well, minivans start making less sense—they same way they stopped making sense for me.

This inherent stage-of-life limiter makes it seem less likely, for example, that an owner ready to trade in a minivan will replace it with another minivan.

Nevertheless, a market of nearly 300,000 sales per year is nothing to sneer at, right? A sale is a sale is a sale.

So why doesn’t Ford want a piece of the hybrid minivan market in the U.S.?

It might ultimately be a simple matter of brand equity that competing minivan models have earned over the years. Dodge practically pioneered the category with the Caravan, which probably explains why the Grand Caravan (along with its fancier cousin in the Stellantis family, the Chrysler Pacifica) is one of the few remaining models. The Honda Odyssey—a perennial Consumer Reports darling—has enjoyed a strong reputation for quality and durability. And the fierce brand loyalty of Toyota owners no doubt contributes to the Sienna’s endurance.

While Ford had a nice run with the Windstar and later the Freestar, their minivan offering was always somewhat of an also-ran compared to the Dodge Caravan. And Ford exited the minivan segment entirely in the U.S. after 2007.

Yet they’re unveiling a hybrid minivan with the S-MAX Hybrid in Europe. How difficult could it be to also make a U.S. version available?

It’s a curious business decision, but it’s also consistent with the extent to which Ford, with the exception of the Mustang, has for now at least gone all-in with trucks, SUVs, and crossovers—and nothing else—for the U.S. market.

Preference for vehicle formats, of course, is always generational. As a generation comes of age, there is a tendency to eschew what their parents drove. Station wagons fell out of vogue as baby boomers grew up and started families—and bought minivans. Then Generation X and Millennials shunned minivans, and here we are. Yet now wagons are somewhat chic among car enthusiasts.

So perhaps a resurgence of minivans still lies ahead. But in the U.S., for now, it looks like Ford’s perspective is “No hybrid minivan for you!”