Minivan sector's demise opens door for tech-packed passenger-focused vans

Europe's minivan market is in free fall as more automakers shift their focus to SUVs, but the struggling segment is being handed a lifeline as companies offer an alternative in the form of more sophisticated passenger versions of vans such as the Volkswagen Transporter and Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro.

Having peaked at 2.4 million units in 2005, last year the combined minivan segment dropped below 1 million, figures from LMC Automotive show. At the height of its popularity, the class-leading Renault Scenic accounted for more than 300,000 sales annually, but last year no minivan managed to top 100,000.

The slide will worsen in the coming years as more automakers abandon the segment, according to LMC Automotive, which sees the minivan sector dropping below 800,000 this year and falling to fewer than 600,000 by 2022. "With SUVs being the primary focus of investment, other body styles have to fight for survival, none more so than the minivan," Sammy Chan, an analyst with LMC, wrote in a paper earlier this year.

Once-key models are now being dropped. Ford is discontinuing the C-Max compact minivan, once a top 3-seller in the segment, and the company is unlikely to replace the S-Max or Galaxy large minivans as it looks to save money in the region. Toyota has cut its Verso, which was the last minivan in its lineup, while Opel/Vauxhall is phasing out the Zafira, another big-seller in its day. Automakers such as Nissan and Honda got out of the segment a long time ago. Peugeot, Mazda and Seat followed more recently.

Plummeting sales

The small minivan segment suffered most last year from the rapid shift by car buyers to SUVs. The sector halved to a little more than 100,000 sales, according to figures from JATO Dynamics. Only the Fiat 500L topped 50,000 last year, while both Ford and Opel left the segment after axing the B-Max and Meriva, respectively. The Hyundai ix20 and Kia Venga remain on sale but both models are expected to be dropped by 2020, LMC predicts.

The compact minivan segment fell below half a million last year to 410,966, a drop of 21 percent, according to JATO. The segment is buoyed mainly by its key market of Germany, where 186,063 compact minivans were sold last year.

France is the birthplace of European minivans with Renault launching the Espace first then the smaller Scenic, but sales of the models there fell 25 percent last year. Espace sales were particularly bad, falling 35 percent to just 12,029 in Europe. Germany is now by far the biggest market for large minivans, helped by the success of the class-leading Mercedes-Benz V class.

The van plan

The V class, which is also sold as a passenger van, is becoming a case study for other manufacturers hoping to keep a foot in the segment. They do so by making their vans sophisticated enough to appeal to minivan customers by adding more seats and windows to differentiate them from the commercial versions typically sold to tradespeople or delivery companies.

The market is more stable than it is for minivans. "Van-derived minivans seem to resist the shift to SUVs," Felipe Munoz, global analyst for JATO, said.

The European market last year stood at 485,000 and will grow slightly this year to reach almost half a million, LMC predicts. The market will then slowly decline to 419,000 by 2022, it forecasts.

Manufacturers are hoping to prove LMC's predictions wrong and grow the market by blurring the line between van and car. For example, Opel/Vauxhall has named the passenger version of its new Vivaro midsize van the Zafira Life as a way of linking it to its minivan. Opel will offer the Zafira Life in three lengths, the smallest of which at 4600mm is similar to that of the Zafira Tourer, which is being discontinued.

Opel/Vauxhall also has big plans for its Combo compact van. "We see a lot of growth for the passenger version," Tobias Stoever, Opel/Vauxhall's senior manager for light commercial vehicles, told Automotive News Europe last year. He cited the fact that Peugeot and Citroen routinely sell about 40 percent of their compact van volume as passenger versions, compared with 10 percent for the previous Opel/Vauxhall Combo.

Key for Ford, VW

The European leader in the passenger van segment is the VW Transporter midsize model with sales of 64,254 last year. The VW Caddy compact van was No. 2. The Dacia Dokker ranked third followed by the Fiat Ducato.

The latest passenger version of the Transporter, dubbed the Multivan 6.1 by VW, was released last month at the Geneva auto show. The van featured technology from VW's car range such as a 10-inch infotainment screen behind the steering wheel, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning.

While Ford is expected to leave Europe's minivan segment, its broad range of Transit-badged vans offers a way back for a lot less money in terms of development spend.

"From an automaker's point of view, van-derived/van-platform sharing models certainly offers a solution to reduce costs while still retaining a footprint in the minivan segment," LMC's Chan told Automotive News Europe.

Last year, Ford sold 38,028 passenger vans, the majority of which were built in Turkey to take advantage of the country's low-cost manufacturing base. An agreement between Ford and VW to share vans is expected to reduce costs further at each company.

The key to van success in Europe is Germany, where customers purchased 208,376 passenger vans last year, almost quadruple that of the second-biggest market of France. The fact that vans can be registered as cars and be used either for work or leisure boosts their popularity in Germany. In addition, Germany's van market is more of an open playing field as the Fiat Ducato was the No. 2-seller there last year after the VW Transporter.

In the future, passenger vans may have a much bigger role to play as the line between private and public transport is blurred in a world of shared mobility, while further in the future the makers of autonomous vehicles will likely highly value vans for interior space. The minivan in its current form is fading fast, but the concept might merely be evolving rather than going extinct.