Chrysler Slings Updates at Pacifica for 2024

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

While the majority of Americans have long since decamped in favor of crossovers and SUVs, there remains a dedicated cadre of buyers committed to the family minivan. For 2024, Chrysler is rewarding them with a smattering of updates to its Pacifica.


It’s not a sea of change, to be sure – no, they aren’t grabbing a couple of Hellcat engines before that line goes dark in December – but they are worth mentioning. The frankly excellent plug-in hybrid variant will be available in two models for 2024, including a Select trim in addition to the spendy Pinnacle and its second-row throw cushions. This decision deletes a few features or makes them optional (power liftgate, ambient lighting, and the like) but opens the plug-in hybrid price point to more customers.


Two new colors are on the palette: Red Hot and Baltic Gray. Heady stuff, we know. The top-rung Pinnacle gets a different hue for its quilted Nappa leather seats as well. A neatly named Road Tripper package is expanded to Touring L (a trim, not long wheelbase) and the Select PHEV, bringing a basket of exterior graphics and jazzy orange accents plus a few blacked-out inserts for those who want to try and assert their dominance in the school pick-up line. Wholly practical gear like an integrated vacuum cleaner, cameras providing a bird’s-eye view of small passengers in rear-facing seats, and vanishing Stow-n-Go seats are all on the docket depending on trim.

If you need a refresher, the standard Pacifica is powered by the ubiquitous Pentastar V6, good here for 287 horses while the plug-in hybrid adds 16-kWh worth of batteries and has a system output of 260 ponies. It can travel up to 30 miles solely on electricity when conditions are right. As with other years, all-wheel drive is available on some gas-powered models. 


Through the first half of 2023, Chrysler has recorded 73,845 sales of the Pacifica, a number which isn’t readily broken out into gasoline-powered and plug-in hybrid take rates. Amongst the sprawling Stellantis house, this is a number eclipsing vehicles like the Compass, and Durango, and only about 10k off the mighty Wrangler - proving there are still plenty of customers for a Magic Wagon.


[Images: Stellantis]


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Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • Avnut Avnut on Sep 05, 2023

    Chrysler removed the spare tire and replaced it with an inflator kit. That removed it from my consideration. I want to tow a camper and not having a spare of some kind is a deal killer.

    • RHD RHD on Sep 08, 2023

      I wonder what percentage of the time an inflator kit is sufficient when a tire goes flat. In my experience, it would be less than 50% of the time. Those were from overnight slow leaks from a nail, not a sudden blowout on the side of the highway, which is when you need a genuine spare tire. The overnight slow leaks get fixed with a patch kit, so the inflator kit would never get used. This is something that car manufacturers do wrong.





  • Flipper35 Flipper35 on Sep 06, 2023

    We have an 18 Limited. No real issues not related to imacting a.coyote other than the aux battery went bad at 20k miles. Last road trip was 3400 miles and averaged 30mpg on the trip. Tows 3500# just fine.

  • Jalop1991 In a manner similar to PHEV being the correct answer, I declare RPVs to be the correct answer here.We're doing it with certain aircraft; why not with cars on the ground, using hardware and tools like Telsa's "FSD" or GM's "SuperCruise" as the base?Take the local Uber driver out of the car, and put him in a professional centralized environment from where he drives me around. The system and the individual car can have awareness as well as gates, but he's responsible for the driving.Put the tech into my car, and let me buy it as needed. I need someone else to drive me home; hit the button and voila, I've hired a driver for the moment. I don't want to drive 11 hours to my vacation spot; hire the remote pilot for that. When I get there, I have my car and he's still at his normal location, piloting cars for other people.The system would allow for driver rest period, like what's required for truckers, so I might end up with multiple people driving me to the coast. I don't care. And they don't have to be physically with me, therefore they can be way cheaper.Charge taxi-type per-mile rates. For long drives, offer per-trip rates. Offer subscriptions, including miles/hours. Whatever.(And for grins, dress the remote pilots all as Johnnie.)Start this out with big rigs. Take the trucker away from the long haul driving, and let him be there for emergencies and the short haul parts of the trip.And in a manner similar to PHEVs being discredited, I fully expect to be razzed for this brilliant idea (not unlike how Alan Kay wasn't recognized until many many years later for his Dynabook vision).
  • B-BodyBuick84 Not afraid of AV's as I highly doubt they will ever be %100 viable for our roads. Stop-and-go downtown city or rush hour highway traffic? I can see that, but otherwise there's simply too many variables. Bad weather conditions, faded road lines or markings, reflective surfaces with glare, etc. There's also the issue of cultural norms. About a decade ago there was actually an online test called 'The Morality Machine' one could do online where you were in control of an AV and choose what action to take when a crash was inevitable. I think something like 2.5 million people across the world participated? For example, do you hit and most likely kill the elderly couple strolling across the crosswalk or crash the vehicle into a cement barrier and almost certainly cause the death of the vehicle occupants? What if it's a parent and child? In N. America 98% of people choose to hit the elderly couple and save themselves while in Asia, the exact opposite happened where 98% choose to hit the parent and child. Why? Cultural differences. Asia puts a lot of emphasis on respecting their elderly while N. America has a culture of 'save/ protect the children'. Are these AV's going to respect that culture? Is a VW Jetta or Buick Envision AV going to have different programming depending on whether it's sold in Canada or Taiwan? how's that going to effect legislation and legal battles when a crash inevitibly does happen? These are the true barriers to mass AV adoption, and in the 10 years since that test came out, there has been zero answers or progress on this matter. So no, I'm not afraid of AV's simply because with the exception of a few specific situations, most avenues are going to prove to be a dead-end for automakers.
  • Mike Bradley Autonomous cars were developed in Silicon Valley. For new products there, the standard business plan is to put a barely-functioning product on the market right away and wait for the early-adopter customers to find the flaws. That's exactly what's happened. Detroit's plan is pretty much the opposite, but Detroit isn't developing this product. That's why dealers, for instance, haven't been trained in the cars.
  • Dartman https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fdaAutonomous/Ai is here now. The question is implementation and acceptance.
  • FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?
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