For a while during the nineties and noughties, it began to feel like station wagons had become less popular. There were so many suitable family alternatives – like the SUVs, crossovers and people carriers or MPVs. Soccer moms were no longer able to throw kids in the back of the wagon – they all had to have their own seat and restraint to travel in. And of course, these safety issues are still relevant, but gradually it seems that there are more people going back to driving a wagon – or estate car as it’s called in the UK.

This might be a fashion thing – people may have tired of driving MPVs that look more like minibuses than cars, and sometimes feel like that to drive too. With a wagon, you have the sensation of driving a car much more than you do with an MPV – with more control on the curves of the road, and without the kind of overly bouncy suspension you get with some MPVs. Added to this, a lot of the newer station wagons can safely seat seven, so you get the practicality of an MPV without having to drive one!

Many of the new eco cars that manufacturers are producing now cater for the larger family too. Toyota brought out its Prius V in the States in October 2011. The US version only seats five, but the same vehicle will be produced to seat seven in Europe and Japan.

The seven seat model Prius has middle and back row seats which split and fold to offer greater flexibility to carry passengers and cargo. If you have all three rows of seats full of people, then there is a space for 200 litres of cargo in the trunk. If you have two rows of seats and drop the third row, this frees up 505 litres of cargo room.

It seems that there’s an ever increasing range of options for today’s family driver – whether they have a number of people or more stuff to move around in their car. And with the introduction of more hybrid station wagons and MPVs, it’s getting easier to be green even if you have a big family.

Honda has three hybrids on offer in the UK and one of the most popular is the Hybrid Jazz.

In the UK, the Jazz was first available as a petrol version and was introduced as a hybrid in 2010. The other Honda hybrids in the UK are the Insight and the sporty CR-Z.

But the next big thing from Honda is all the electric Jazz. Named the Jazz EV, the all-electric version won’t be available in the UK or Europe for a few years yet, but it will be launched in Japan and California and Oregon in 2012 and then to six other US states during 2013. The Jazz is known as the Fit in Japan and the States.

The Jazz EV will have a lithium-ion battery and a 92kW electric motor. The range will be 76 miles in a combined highway/city mode and 123 miles for pure city driving. The electric motor’s battery will charge in 3 hours when plugged in to a 240V supply.

Those driving the Jazz EV can choose between three different driving modes – ‘normal’ ‘econ’ and ‘sport’- simply by pressing a button.  Obviously, the ‘econ’ button is the most economical mode of the three.

Meanwhile the current Jazz hybrid in the UK has low carbon dioxide emissions of 104g/km, 21g/km less than the petrol Jazz. It has a combined mileage of 62.8mpg.

Honda’s Jazz hybrid has the Eco Assist function, which helps the driver use the car in the most eco-friendly way. If you brake hard or accelerate aggressively, the speedometer glows blue instead of green. If you drive in a more fuel-efficient manner, the flower emblem on the Econ button grows. You also have a scoring system that grades your eco-driving and adds each journey to your lifetime score. The better the score you have, the more money you will have saved on fuel and the less harm you’ve done to the environment.

Pressing the Econ mode button will adjust all car systems to their eco-driving optimum; by increasing the idle stop time, for example.

The 1.3 IMA petrol-hybrid Jazz costs just under £16,000 and comes with keyless entry, Honda’s ‘magic’ folding rear seats, electric front and rear windows and dual front, side and curtain airbags, to name just a few of its features.