this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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The other thing is that people like comfortable cars that are easy to drive. Up until the long/low/wide era of the late 1950s, most cars had high roofs. easy cargo spaces, high hip points and chair-like seating, all of which was sacrificed on the altar of styling.
SUVs brought us back to the easy-to-own, easy-to-drive vehicles of that era, at the expense of being unpleasant to drive compared to cars. That's where crossovers come in: they're cars with that tall roof and hip point, but without the body-on-frame construction of truck-based SUV that gets you bad handling, worse ride and terrible fuel economy.
And yes, it's true that crossovers were yet another way to boost margin, but they're also better in almost every way than the low-roof cars that came before them, and consumer-oriented design counts for a lot.
what does this mean?
"Easy to live with" is probably a a better term. They're more comfortable and more versatile than a low-roof car, and not gas-sucking, hard to park, terrible handling and hard to climb in and out of like a truck or truck-based SUV.
Pre-SUV era minivans entered the chat.
While I agree with you, there were very few USDM two-row tall-roof cars, and I think the only one that sold even remotely well was the Chrysler Magic Wagon, because the others (the Civic Wagovan, whatever Nissan sold) were gutless.
The cars that really sell well are compact and mid-size crossovers like the CRV and RAV/4. Minivans aren't quite the same thing, and the US never really got MPVs that crossovers basically are.
I do agree that minivans are almost always better than large crossovers, but they're not as popular, cost more to make and retail for lower margins, which is why OEMs don't push them.