My dream car is:

• A minivan. I want room for my three kids, a few of their friends, and their sleds.
• All-electric. A plug-in hybrid is a help, but I’d rather jump in with both feet.
• Affordable. While affordability is obviously relative, I don’t want a $60k (or $120k) luxury vehicle.
• Two or three years old. I’m happy to have the first owner pay $10,000 to break in the first few coffee spills and shopping-cart scratches.

My dream car is not:

• Self-driving. I’m fine steering all the way to the grocery store. Call me in ($CURRENT_YEAR + 10) when I don’t need a steering wheel.
• Fast. Life has enough metaphorical whiplash. I don’t need to experience g-forces while getting the kids to soccer.
• A driving entertainment centre. I don’t need six screens to drive to the grocery store.
• A showcase of experimental door mechanisms. As Alex Blumberg notes in this podcast episode, those Back-to-the-Future doors on the Model X are embarrassingly ostentatious.

As of today, the closest thing to an electric minivan is a $100,000+ Tesla Model X super-car SUV with embarrassing super-doors. Chrysler does sell a plug-in hybrid Pacifica minivan that could work for us. I’m curious to learn how practical it is to drive in all-electric mode by default and fall back to internal-combustion only when you’re out of battery.

Given that my requirements are not likely to be met any time soon, I’ll likely need to consider alternatives. We may have to settle for a smaller vehicle and pay more for something newer than we want/need. We may also need to consider giving up on our dream of owning only one vehicle. We could go for an older, cheaper gas-powered minivan for occasional use, plus a smaller electric vehicle for regular/daily use.

It’s unfortunate that going electric is still a luxury. I look forward to the time when the cheapest Kia, Hyundai, Honda, & Toyota are all-electric.

All of this said, I could just step up an buy a used first-gen electric Kia Soul for $15,000 or so. It’s been done.