Trade in the SUV, it's people mover time! How the Kia Carnival made the people mover cool and why Chinese brands BYD, XPeng and Zeekr will take it further | Opinion

People movers were never cool in Australia, but that’s changing as our evolving tastes take us out of SUVs and into little buses.

I know it sounds loopy to think that our love affair with SUVs could be over, and it's not. Not yet anyway, and not for years.

But we’re watching fashion slowly change here. Because let’s face it, fashion dictates the type of cars we buy. It’s car fashion. Only instead of clothes and hairstyles, it’s car body styles.

And even though SUVs are still so hot right now, more and more people are ‘wearing’ people movers and they’re becoming cool. 

Looks have always mattered and people movers in the past just haven't been very attractive.

Take the Toyota Tarago. Despite it being incredibly practical and spacious and exactly what a family with more than two kids really actually needs, SUVs still pushed it aside in sales.

People would rather be slightly less comfortable and look good, rather than the other way around. Like fashion.

But that all changed when the Kia Carnival people mover came along in its third generation in 2014. Here was a vehicle with more utility than any SUV in terms of space and storage for families and their cargo. But it was also good looking. 

When the fourth-generation Carnival launched in 2020 we were presented with not just a good looking people mover but a sexy one, a desirable one. Super practical and pretty.

The appeal of SUVs is still incredibly strong and dominates the market. These oversized, high-riding wagons gained popularity back in the 1990s by tapping into the romanticism of having an SUV which looks like it's capable of adventure.

On the other hand, people movers back then symbolised your choice to opt out of adventure.  

Truth is, the owners of SUVs such as a Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-5 or Toyota Kluger, or most other SUVs, don’t go off-road and even if they wanted to their big car wouldn’t get far. 

The people mover market in Australia is currently tiny; we're talking one per cent of all vehicle sales. And that's mainly because manufacturers abandoned it when they realised more people wanted SUVs.

That exodus pretty much left the market wide open for the Kia Carnival. The thing is, sales of the Carnival have grown so much it's making other brands introduce people movers of their own. 

How good are the Carnival’s sales? Last year 10,080 Kia Carnivals were sold in Australia. That's more than the total number of Volvos sold, double the amount of Skodas sold and triple the number of Minis sold in Australia last year.

And if that doesn't make you realize how big the Carnival number is, Honda sold 14,092 cars in Australia last year. Kia almost matched that number with the Carnival alone.

Sales of people movers are up more than 36.6 per cent compared to last year. The sales of the Kia Carnival so far in 2025 have reached 2402, up by 40.7 per cent.

Now we’re beginning to see more people movers arrive in Australia - some we know, some we have never heard of.

One of the most recent arrivals is the new-generation Volkswagen Multivan which now rides on a car platform and the brand admits the Kia Carnival is firmly in its sights.

Also from Volkswagen is the ID. Buzz, a fully-electric retro Kombi van that was launched here late last year. I'm predicting this will be as popular as the little Mini for a broad range of people from Boomers all the way to Millennials.

Zeekr is a new Chinese brand owned by auto giant Geely and its 009 people mover is fully-electric and fully kitted out with luxurious features from plush leather seats to multiple screens. The 009 is also ridiculously good looking.

Zeekr may also bring its Mix to Australia, another pure-electric people mover. The Mix has seats in the rear which can turn around to face each other, and like the 009, it's super sexy. 

Then there's BYD, another Chinese brand which has made enormous inroads in Australia with the success of its Atto 3, Sealion 6 and Shark 6.

BYD also has a people mover called the Xia. It’s a hybrid and could very well make its way to Australia, too.

The XPeng X9 will be a cut-price electric people mover due to arrive in Australia towards the end of this year.

Once these Chinese brands arrive with their people movers we should start to see car fashion shift away from SUVs a little more rapidly. 

It was the Kia Carnival which re-energised the people mover segment by this time making it a better looking way to get around.

But as more Carnivals strut their stuff around the suburbs, the more people think they can see themselves and their family in one.

Other brands know Kia has started this and now they want a slice of the action.

It used to be that mainstream car brands needed an SUV and a ute to be successful. Soon they may have to add a people mover to that 'must have' list, as well.