Millennials Grew Up Mocking Minivans, Now They Can’t Buy Them Fast Enough

Minivan sales boomed last year as millennials finally embraced family practicality.
Sliding doors, huge cabins and lower prices make SUVs look pricey and impractical.
Even classic car crowds are discovering old minivans deserve some affection.

The minivan has spent years being automotive shorthand for surrendering to parenthood. But something strange is happening. Millennials, who grew up watching their parents haul them around in these rolling family rooms, are buying vans themselves and discovering that mom and dad might’ve been onto something.

Minivan sales climbed 21 percent in 2025 to almost 400,000 vehicles, according to Edmunds. Toyota’s Sienna had an especially strong year, with sales reportedly rising 35 percent, while examples spent just 18 days on dealer lots.

Millennials Grew Up Mocking Minivans, Now They Can’t Buy Them Fast Enough — Toyota Previa minivan.

What’s changed, CNN reports, isn’t really the minivan. It’s the people buying them. Millennials, who were born between 1981 to 1996, making them 30-45 years old, are now firmly in their kid-hauling years, and suddenly sliding doors that children can open themselves sound more useful than pretending you’ll someday take that three-row SUV to Moab.

Modern vans also offer enormous interiors, flexible seating, big screens, hybrid powertrains and enough cupholders to hydrate a Little League team. Some of them even have in-built vacuum cleaners to help clear up the mess kids inevitably leave in their wake. If more SUV buyers with families actually spent time in a modern minivan like the Toyota Sienna or recently refreshed Chrysler Pacifica, you just know they’d be won over by how much easier they make life as a grown-up.

Better Value

There’s another compelling argument: money. Cars.com data cited in the report suggests minivans are around $4,000 cheaper than equivalent three-row SUVs. In June, the average minivan transaction price was $48,908, below the $49,758 industry average and miles from the nearly $80,000 commanded by full-size SUVs.

The combination of rediscovered practicality and value is slowly helping to banish minivans’ uncool soccer-mom image. And some owners are loud and proud about their boxes on wheels. Social media is increasingly showing owners giving us tours of their vans’ lounge-like cabins and flexibility.

And there’s evidence the rehabilitation extends beyond new-car showrooms, and even into the collector market. At Hagerty’s Festival of the Unexceptional in Britain this past weekend, a Renault Espace joined the celebration of yesterday’s wonderfully ordinary machinery. Better still, a wine-red 1992 Toyota Previa finished second overall, beaten only by a 2001 Volkswagen Polo.