Still, knowing how much cargo your minivan or SUV can carry is a challenge. While automakers are happy to highlight the overall luggage capacity of their offerings, not all of that cargo room is usable space. Having a lot of space doesn’t do much good if the cargo opening is narrow, short, or oddly shaped.
At Consumer Reports we evaluate cargo room with an expandable rectangular pipe-frame “box.” We enlarge it enough to just fit through the rear opening and extend it into the cargo bay as far as possible without preventing the hatch from closing.
Cargo capacity is the volume enclosed by that box, because it doesn’t help you to have a cavernous space with a small hatch opening. This gives consumers a better idea of what they can fit through the hatch and in the back, whether it’s luggage for a trip, a new dishwasher, or a big-screen TV coming home from the electronics store. (Learn more about how Consumer Reports tests cars.)
Based on our testing process, we’ve identified the 10 minivans and SUVs with the most usable cargo room. They’re ranked in order of cubic feet of cargo room with both rows folded down, with the top performer first.
All of the vehicles here have standard automatic emergency braking (AEB), AEB that works at highway speeds, blind spot warning (BSW), and rear cross traffic warning (RCTW) unless noted otherwise. Not every vehicle is recommended. This may be because of below-average reliability or a too-low Overall Score.
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