Posting’s been slow lately, I hope to bring everyone up to date on recent progress soon. The first topic is that we said bye to the good old Prius and upgraded our transportation.

The Prius has been an excellent car, but its versatility dropped a lot when you always have the child seat strapped into the back since you can’t fold the seats down without taking it out. Which we need to do pretty often to take the trash to the dump, etc. (Weaksauce, I know. It must be age.)

We’ve loosely discussed getting a larger vehicle for a while, but I certainly didn’t want to get a gas guzzler. There are some pretty fuel-efficient larger options like the hybrid RAV4, but you can’t actually fit that much more in them. (I like to say that these SUVs are “large on the outside, small on the inside”!)

Enter the Pacifica plug-in hybrid minivan!

Once I started looking at larger options, it was clear that nothing can hold a candle in utility to a minivan. Not only do you get a massive cargo space, large enough to load 4’x8′ plywood sheets should you need to, you can also seat 7 people comfortably which is useful when the grandparents are visiting. However, minivans use a lot of gas, with one exception: Chrysler makes a plug-in hybrid version of the Pacifica minivan. This is clearly a “compliance vehicle” to avoid federal penalties because Fiat Chrysler mostly makes gas guzzling vehicles like the Dodge Challenger and Jeeps. Lucky for us! (For 2021, Toyota is finally making its Sienna minivan hybrid (not plug-in, though) so next year there will be two options.)

The Pacifica has a ~30 mile electric range, which is perfect for our around-town trips. Since we upgraded our water heater to a heat pump, we were actually consuming less electricity than our PV was making, so at the rate we drive, we basically charge it for free. This is lucky, because with utility rates as high as they are here ($0.35/kWh), Hawaii must be the only state in the country where running a car on electricity is actually not really cheaper than running it on gas!

As much as I hate to admit it, it’s really nice to have that large, cavernous cargo area. When going to the beach, you can basically change Axel into swimwear while he’s standing in the back, with access to all the gear. Throwing a bike into the back with Axel in his chair is also no problem.

So far the Pacifica is entirely stock, and I don’t expect there will be many projects associated with it. However, there is one thing I want to do: upgrade the headlights. They’re halogen, and they’re not very good. I’m not about to go cutting up brand new headlights so I ordered a second pair that I’m going to open and replace the high and low beams with LEDs. Whenever I get around to it… It’s getting darker now so hopefully soon.