GAME CHANGERS
I grew up surrounded by minivans. Whether it was the Chrysler Voyager or the two Ford Windstars we had in Mexico City in the late ’90s or the two Honda Odysseys and the Toyota Sienna my mom drove when we moved to Texas, our family sought spacious and comfortable family haulers.
And we made good use of them. We spent countless weekends and holidays driving from Mexico City to Acapulco and Cuernavaca. We’d drive from Houston to Mexico City during the summers, went to New Mexico for a ski trip, and visited all of Texas’ major cities several times.
A big family like ours needed a vehicle with plenty of space for six and their gear, and back then, a minivan was the only option. Space, safety, and reliability were at the top of my parents’ list of must-have transportation features. SUVs were for off-roading, not the road trip or morning school run.
Fast-forward to today, and the automotive consumer scene could not be more different. Americans have largely ditched minivans for three-row SUVs. In the past decade and a half, about a dozen minivans have been discontinued. And in the past three years, new names like Atlas, Ascent, Telluride, and Palisade have joined the hyper-competitive three-row SUV segment.
What caused the shift? Consumers’ preferences have changed. Features like all-wheel drive are now seen as essential. Gone are the choppy driving manners of yesteryear’s SUVs; they now have the same carlike driving feel of minivans without losing their towing and light off-roading capabilities.
With so many options, it’s difficult to know which of today’s three-row SUVs is best, especially as most of the options are all-new or have been significantly updated in the past couple years. We tested nine three-row SUVs and looked at their driving dynamics, comfort for families and roominess for their gear, intuitiveness of infotainment technology, and of course value and safety, all so we could answer one question: What’s the best three-row SUV on the market?
The Players
This contest pits the 2020 MotorTrend SUV of the Year against several newer entrants and some segment stalwarts. Can it handle the burden?
If you prefer an SUV that stands out from a crowd, the Kia Telluride, crowned SUV of the Year for 2020, gets a lot of attention. Kia’s new three-row SUV brings fresh style to the SUV’s traditional boxy design. It also delivers a ton of value—at $47,585, our Telluride SX arrived with heated and ventilated seats in the first and second rows, a panoramic sunroof, and USB ports for all three rows.
