2025 Toyota Sienna First Drive: Honing The Edge

When is a facelift not a facelift? In the case of the Toyota Sienna, it’s the 2025 model year. Mechanically, the Sienna is unchanged for 2025, but it’s what’s inside that counts.

For starters, Toyota will now sell you both a vacuum and a fridge located on and in the center console for cooling drinks and cleaning up messes. There’s also a new infotainment system and a new safety feature to go along with it. It doesn’t sound like much, but each of these items fundamentally changed how I interacted with the new Sienna I drove this week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

What’s New: Inside The 2025 Sienna

Let’s start with that fridge. Toyota will only sell it with the vacuum, not a la carte, which is a bit of a downer. The duo are part of an optional package on the Sienna’s Limited trim, or standard if you opt for the top-of-the-line Platinum trim. Intricacies of the lineup aside, the fridge does its job, and on my drive route through the Charlotte suburbs, it kept my water icy cool. The fridge looks to hold around five to six bottles (or just a few large ones), and I didn’t find the cold air leaking out onto my elbow while driving either. 

As for the vacuum, I can really only attest that it works. It’s a little loud (duh), but it picked up my name tag with some real force and held it to the nozzle. I’d imagine it’s at least as strong as the vacuums you find at gas stations, and finding some extra attachments or an extension for the hose shouldn’t be tough, as the whole deal looks fairly standard.

Handling and Drivability: If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It

The Sienna doesn’t mess with success. It’s still powered by the same 245-horsepower hybrid powertrain with optional all-wheel drive. Adding two driven wheels comes courtesy of a third electric motor on the rear axle. While it doesn’t increase total output, I think AWD models feel a little more snappy and eager.

Front-drive models won’t struggle to overtake on the highway, either, however. More importantly, even all-wheel drive versions net a solid 35 mpg combined. The Sienna’s automatic transmission does a good job of managing all this, and there’s also an EV-only mode that’s available for low-speed, quiet cruising should you want it.

Interior Style and Quality: Just The Same, And That’s Great

Speaking of the Sienna’s more practical aspects, its interior is just as usable as ever, and the aforementioned improvements help elevate the experience a little. It’s worth noting the second row doesn’t stow in the floor like the third does, but the rest of the interior is all high notes.

The seats are all comfy, and adults shouldn’t have problems fitting anywhere thanks to the high roof. Critically, the Sienna is also still just as comfy and quiet on the road as last year’s model, and it manages to be comfortable without being overly soft and squishy quite nicely.

Tech and Safety: Don’t Forget

I opted not to fully test the Sienna’s latest safety feature, however. Toyota says its new rear seat reminder will ensure you don’t forget a person in the back seat, and that is accomplished through a series of escalating alerts paired with a hyper-sensitive motion sensor in the roof. The sensor can reportedly detect the rising and falling of a wee babe’s chest, and if you’ve left said babe alone without realizing it, the door lock chime sounds nine times. Fail to respond, and the horn gets going and won’t stop until the doors are unlocked and opened. Supposing you can't hear, Toyota tells me that customers can also sign up for push alerts and calls to their phones if the system detects a living creature forgotten inside.

Toyota also upsized the Sienna’s touchscreen considerably. The new 12.3-inch unit feels a lot larger than the old 9-inch screen, though the menus and graphics are all the same. Most notably, the big screen now offers wireless Carplay and Android Auto capability. Unfortunately, the tech side of things isn’t all full of good news. The base model’s screen loses an inch, from nine to eight inches for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. It’s not a huge issue, but a lot of the Sienna’s best moves are pushed into upper trims already.

Final Thoughts: Why Change?

Is the new Sienna really all that different? In a word, no, but what is changed will improve owners’ quality of life. Frankly, the 2025 Toyota Sienna also didn’t need to be that different. It drove great out of the box, and its hybrid powertrain is plenty powerful and efficient. At the end of the day, the Sienna is a capable hauler that keeps getting a little bit better.

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