Best Anti-Minivans for Moms

What's a Mother to do? Since there are only really five minivans available on the market now that Chrysler/Dodge is pulling out of the game, features and pricing options are more limited than ever.

So in honor of Mothers Day, we put together a list of family haulers that do not include minivans for her consideration. With minivans out of the mix, there is still a need for safety, cargo space and luxurious amenities when it comes to the family's main ride.

Budget plays a leading role in choosing the right car, so we included some affordable, but safe cars along with a few top-of-the-line luxury people movers. And just to give Mom a fighting chance, we added some less-mainstream outliers that just might be the perfect fit for the whole family.

The Kia Soul is well ahead of its "boxy" competitors - the Nissan cube and the Scion xB - in sales and popularity. Although it's marketed to young hipsters, a budget-conscious Mom with no more than two kids and their gear may find it ample and easy to park with its compact footprint, but spacious interior. The Soul got a substantial redesign for the 2014 model year, making it even more family-friendly. The changes are most noticeable on the inside. Throughout the interior, you'll find softer surfaces, more refined electronics and nicely placed speakers on either end of the well-designed dash. The car comes standard with Bluetooth, satellite radio, USB, cruise control and auxiliary jacks for smartphones.

Fuel economy - 27/30 mpg city/highway - is understandably lower than some of the compact cars the Soul competes against and that has much to do with its lack of aerodynamics. But comparing it to large SUV, a family can save nearly 20% at the pump and the trade off is in its increased cargo space. With a five-star safety rating from the NHTSA, dual advanced front and front seat-mounted side airbags and full-length side curtain airbags, the 2014 Kia Soul, which starts at $15,495, is a both safe and affordable for families on a budget.

True, this is a compact SUV with only two rows, but for a smaller family, the safety and excellent gas mileage (for its class) makes this Subaru one the family can easily learn to love. One stand-out safety feature is the Subaru Eyesight Drive Assist System which bundles adaptive cruise control, pre-collision braking and lane departure warning together to cover all bases.

Subaru engineered the interior to be family-friendly too. The rear seats are easy to get access to by busy Moms thanks to an expanded rear door opening and LATCH child seat anchors placed solidly in front. Back seat cup holders come down from the center at a medium-height level for kids to have that all-important access to their sippy cups.

Families will love the available built-in refrigerator that sits between two captain's chairs in the second row. It can hold seven 12-ounce cans and gets as low as 23 degrees Fahrenheit. You also get the SYNC communications system, complete with voice-activation for music and phone calls and it can even read text messages aloud as they come in. 

Flex is offered with two different engines. A 3.5-liter V6 that gets 287 horsepower and has an EPA city/highway fuel economy of 18/25 mpg on the FWD model and a 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged 46 with 365 horsepower and 16/23 city/highway mpg. The Flex starts at just under $32,000, so it's right up there with other large vehicles. 

Cadillac has abandoned its plan to attract a "gangsta" image for the new Escalade and moved its flagship vehicle more toward young, wealthy families - specifically Moms who "want it all." And Cadillac says the Moms traditionally go for the long wheelbase version -- the Cadillac Escalade ESV -- which adds 20 inches to the wheelbase and 10 inches to the third row seats. The family will be the talk of the town when the neighbors get a load of the stack of LED headlights and taillights that resemble a runway at LAX. Not to mention the big grille that makes a dramatic entrance with Hummer-like dominance.

Big is the prevailing word when describing the Cadillac Escalade and any size family large family would be in pure luxury in this mean machine. It's finally caught up with the many changes Cadillac is making across its product line, but the most important change is that it's a big truck that drives like a regular car. This is courtesy of what Cadillac calls Magnetic Ride control and a newly engineered rear track which widens the SUV's stance by nearly two inches. With its active fuel management system that allows the vehicle to run on just four of its eight cylinders, fuel economy is not so bad for such a huge SUV - 14 mpg in the city and 21 on the highway.

Every Escalade comes equipped with heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel, a 16-speaker Bose Centerpoint surround sound system and a 12.3-inch instrument cluster screen. Options abound with heads-up display, adaptive cruise control and a rear-seat entertainment system with a nine-inch screen that uses a Blu-Ray player. And with the highly upgraded leathers and woods inside, this Cadillac is something a new generation of families will once again equate with success.