Minivans move people better than SUVs. They’re roomier, comfier, more flexible, and mostly more fuel efficient. They may not look the off-road part, but half of the four minivans on sale now offer all-wheel drive, and all but one new minivans come with a hybrid option.
The refreshed 2025 Honda Odyssey doesn’t offer either. It’s front-wheel drive only and it still rolls with a 3.5-liter V-6 that gets 22 mpg combined. Yet, it’s still a great take on the minivan. As is the 2024 Toyota Sienna. It comes with front- or all-wheel drive, and gets up to an EPA-rated 36 mpg combined.
Both have much to offer, from features to safety tech. In the end, which one wins? Here’s how we sort it out.
2024 Toyota Sienna
2025 Honda Odyssey
Each of these minivans comes in at least four versions. Honda sells its minivan in EX, EX-L, Sport, Touring, and Elite trim. The Sienna’s sold as an LE, XLE, Woodland, XSE, Limited, or as a Platinum.
A standard hybrid, the Toyota Sienna comes with several trim options, including LE, XLE, XLE Woodland, XSE, Limited, and Platinum. All-wheel drive costs $2,000 extra on all but the XLE Woodland, where it comes standard.
The standard Sienna LE costs $38,850, including a $1,395 destination fee. It has the expected modern minivan basics, power sliding doors, a raft of safety technology, and a 9.0-inch touchscreen with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Step up to the Sienna XLE for a few thousand more, and you’ll get a sunroof and synthetic leather upholstery. The fancy Sienna Limited adds in leather upholstery, JBL audio, navigation, and an in-car intercom for the driver to connect with passengers in the rear. A Sienna Platinum with all-wheel drive runs more than $55,000.
The Odyssey only comes in four well-equipped trims, but none of them are cheap, especially compared to the Sienna hybrid. The EX-L costs $43,315 with the mandatory $1,395 destination charge, and it includes a 7.0-inch instrument cluster juxtaposing a digital display with an analog speedometer, a 9.0-inch touchscreen with wireless smartphone connectivity and a wireless device charger. That’s a good Odyssey.
The $44,465 Sport-L goes dark with black exterior trim pieces like so many SUVs and black leather upholstery with red contrast stitching, while the top Elite luxuriates in two-tone perforated leather upholstery, cooled front seats, a heated steering wheel, and a hands-free power tailgate among other upgrades for $52,275.
2025 Honda Odyssey
2025 Honda Odyssey
2025 Honda Odyssey
2025 Honda Odyssey
No, it’s only available with front-wheel drive.
All Odysseys come with a 280-hp, 3.5-liter V-6 paired to a 10-speed automatic. The combination hustles the portly people mover in an eager way, though the 10-speed automatic transmission can dither at low speeds when it’s asked to shift quickly. Honda’s independent suspension design does a superb job of muting the road and delivering a smooth ride, while it leans into corners.
Woodland models turn the standard front-wheel-drive setup into all-wheel drive, otherwise it’s a $2,000 option. With it, a third electric motor sends power to the rear wheels independently from the engine and front wheels. Toyota’s hybrid setup here combines a 4-cylinder with two motors and a small battery pack to net 245 hp. It works better at low speeds, where it delivers good torque for stoplight launches, but that tapers off as speeds rise. The drivetrain isn’t as smooth nor quite as strong as that in the Honda, but Toyota’s suspension settles into corners better, and tracks well down the highway. The tradeoff’s slight—but the eye-popping difference in fuel economy is not.
2024 Toyota Sienna
The Toyota Sienna scores with its stock hybrid powertrain. With front-wheel drive, the EPA scores it at 36 mpg combined, and it still gets 35 mpg combined with all-wheel drive.
Honda’s Odyssey drains the tank at a rate of 19 mpg city, 28 highway, 22 combined. It’s the only minivan without a hybrid option, including the Chrysler Pacifica and Kia Carnival.
2025 Honda Odyssey
Neither of these minivans has the ultimate flexibility of the Chrysler Pacifica. Instead, they flip and fold second- and third-row seats out of the way to boost space for cargo or people, without tucking those seats into the floor.
2025 Honda Odyssey
In the Odyssey, Honda creates a great space for a driver and front passenger, surrounding them with storage for small items. Power front seats that are heated come standard. Eight people can sit in the standard minivan—or seven, when the flip-out second-row middle seat is removed. When that’s done, the outboard seats can push together for easier back-row access, or remain apart to create an aisle down the middle of the vehicle. Those captain’s chairs can be removed, or they also slide back and forth, to flex the space available to the third-row seat, which has 38.1 inches of legroom—enough in our experience for full-size passengers to feel comfortable.
The Odyssey has at least 33 cubic feet of space behind the third row; when it’s folded down, it offers up 88.6 cubic feet of space. By removing the middle seats and folding down those in the rear, the Odyssey can handle up to 144.9 cubic feet of cargo. No car-based SUV can match that.
2024 Toyota Sienna
The Sienna’s no slouch, either. It has seats for up to eight people, too—and all models get a power driver seat, and a useful storage shelf across the passenger side of the front seat. It has a two-tiered center console for deep storage, too. Leather’s an option, if fancy minivans are your gig.
The second-row Sienna seats act more like airline-style thrones. With up to 25 inches of back-and-forth slide to them, as well as footrests on top-end models, the Sienna can accommodate two people in the second row in much higher regard, with more legroom as well. The tradeoff? The Sienna’s middle seats can’t be removed. Toyota’s solution: allow the seat bottoms to flip up, so that the middle seats fold up against the front seat backs. Slide those middle seats forward and it’s easier to access the third row, which tucks into the floor when not in use. In all, with the second and third rows pushed out of the way as best as possible, the Sienna can carry up to about 101 cubic feet of cargo.
IIHS minivan crash-test results
Both vehicles come with standard automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, active lane control, automatic high beams, blind-spot monitors, and adaptive cruise control. A surround-view camera system’s an option on the Sienna, but not on the Honda, though Honda has a camera that lets parents keep an eye on the third-row seat. Toyota offers a head-up display and a rear camera mirror for a better rearward view of the road.
Those features appeal to different buyers in different ways, but crash-test scores come down in Honda’s favor. Both vehicles earn the IIHS’ Top Safety Pick+ rating, as well as a five-star NHTSA rating, but the Sienna didn’t perform as well in front impact tests.
2025 Honda Odyssey
Minivans don’t need to be styling leaders, but with the Chrysler Pacifica and Kia Carnival in the game, the Odyssey and the Sienna both need to pick up theirs.
The Sienna sports some of the bulky fenders of the related Toyota Highlander—and for now, it works. The flares and tall grille give it some character that had been missing for a long time, though some editors refer to the front end in terms of cheese-grating tools. The interior’s more cleanly composed and more friendly to use than in previous Siennas, too, though the most expensive models don’t really look it.
The Odyssey’s overdue for a redesign, as its last major makeover came in 2018. The big SUV-like streaks of black trim that divide its side glass have come and gone as a styling cue, though the Honda’s front end looks significantly more trim and car-like than that on the Sienna. Clever storage abounds, but it’s surrounded by a lot of metallic or glossy plastic trim. Honda’s latest Pilot and CR-V SUVs do a fantastic job of answering the same user needs—and looking more fashionable at the same time.
2024 Toyota Sienna
The Honda Odyssey scores a TCC Rating of 6.3 out of 10 compared to a 6.7 out of 10 for the Sienna. Honda gets the nod for safety and interior space as well as ride quality, but Toyota’s Sienna fuel economy far outpaces that of the Odyssey. That makes almost all the difference here.
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