I Drove the 2024 Toyota Sienna Hybrid to See What I’m Missing in My 3-Row SUV

The minivan is perhaps the greatest utility player of them all — and not only for family duty. Its cargo-carrying ability can rival that of a pickup truck, and some can even outrun a two-door sports coupe. It’s a polarizing body style, however, and it’s not uncommon to hear “never a minivan” when I’m suggesting potential recommendations for a car shopper. And while I’m not quite in the “never” camp as far as my own desire to own a minivan — which is surprising considering the long days I spent crammed in one as a kid road-tripping with my family — I picked my side, buying a 2021 Volkswagen Atlas. So when a 2024 Toyota Sienna XSE hybrid with all-wheel drive came around for testing, I wanted to load up the family and see what I was missing.

Related: I Took My Own Advice and Bought a 2021 Volkswagen Atlas

Loading the Family

My 3- and 6-year-old absolutely flipped out in excitement over the remote opening and closing sliding doors. My oldest said the Sienna was the “coolest car in the world” because the doors opened themselves. But wait, kiddos, there’s more inside: This Sienna was equipped with the optional fold-down widescreen entertainment display, which elicited even more oohs and ahhs. Truthfully, they would have been just as excited to see those things in a 10-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan, but it doesn’t change the fact that the sliding doors are awesome, alleviating the concern of holding a door closed in the wind while trying to buckle a wiggly kid into a car seat and making the fast-paced school drop-off line easy with the push of a button to open a door.

I also appreciated how securely and easily a forward-facing convertible and booster seat secured to the captain’s chairs. The seat belt retracts cleanly across the seat when installing the forward-facing convertible, allowing slack to be easily taken out of the belt. Also, the available super-long-slide second-row captain’s chairs have so much sliding distance that there’s no way for the kids to kick the front seats, which even in my Atlas is a problem for the gangly legs of my 6-year-old (sorry, buddy, you got those from dad).

Loading Cargo

The Atlas has one of the largest cargo areas among three-row mid-size SUVs, but it’s no match for the cavernous space inside the Sienna; the Sienna has 50% more cargo space behind the third row, and also 50% more space when the third row is folded and the second-row captain’s chairs are positioned midway back.

I picked up three cube shelves in the Sienna and only had to slide the captain’s chairs forward to fit all three. I didn’t even have to remove the car seats because the seat belt attaches to the seat itself, not the B-pillar. In the Atlas, I would have had to disconnect the car seat to slide the seat forward as well as fold the seats flat to accommodate the shelves. The fact that the Sienna’s second-row captain’s chairs don’t fold flat to the floor and aren’t easily removable is a bummer for maximum cargo room, but the seats slide forward enough for most uses.

Gas Mileage

Everything up until now is par for the course for minivans, but the Sienna stands out with its standard gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain, and this is what most excited me about this van because it gives this big vehicle good efficiency. Even with optional AWD, the Sienna is good for 35 mpg combined, a staggering 13 mpg better than my Atlas four-cylinder with AWD. In dollar terms, that’s fuel savings of $800 per year at current gas prices for regular octane when driving 15,000 miles per year, according to the EPA.

The cost difference would be much greater for me because I fill our Atlas with premium octane to get the advertised power ratings of the VW’s turbocharged 2.0-liter engine. In my 85 miles behind the wheel of the Sienna, which included below-freezing temperatures and driving for evaluation (ahem, vroom vroom driving), I observed 29.9 mpg. In other testing, however, we observed 34 mpg on a 1,369-mile road trip in a 2022 Sienna hybrid. A 2,200-mile road trip in my Atlas returned a calculated 24.1 mpg.

Ride Quality

My Atlas isn’t the best-riding version as it’s equipped with the optional 20-inch wheels, but I still prefer its ride quality to the Sienna XSE’s. The XSE’s “sport-tuned suspension” evoked criticism from my 3-year-old who, unprompted, said, “This car is weird. It makes my ears wiggle. This car is bouncy.” And I don’t disagree with her astute assessment; the XSE drives with harsh impacts and jittery body movements. Our review of the 2021 Sienna, the first model year of this generation, found the LE trim level’s non-sport suspension and 17-inch wheel-and-tire setup much more forgiving.

Which Would I Buy?

As much as I love our Atlas, it’s tempting to have wandering eyes when something like the 2024 Toyota Sienna hybrid rolls through our test fleet with its increased room, versatility and 35 mpg combined rating for gas mileage. Do I have any regrets? Minivan life would simplify transporting kids, including at the school drop-off line, providing loads of storage for little things up front or all the stuff we bring with us on frequent road trips. And the fuel economy of the Sienna hybrid would translate to real savings at the pump considering the multiple road trips under our belts in our Atlas.

The median listing price of a new Toyota Sienna in Cars.com’s national inventory is $47,540, and that price has been on the rise, up 11%  year over year. Interestingly, the median listing price of a new Atlas is nearly identical at $47,404, up 4.4%  over the same time period. Atlases are in much greater supply, however, with more than 11,000 cycling through our inventory in December 2023, up 109%  year over year; the Sienna’s 4,000 or so listings, which saw an 11%  year-over-year increase but has had a steep downward trend since October 2023, means they could be hard to find depending on where you live.

However, I don’t think we’d get enough practical benefits from the Sienna to overcome the hesitancy of driving a minivan, which, admittedly, is an issue primarily of image, but our Atlas also does everything we need it to. That said, throw in a third kid — and I’m speaking to all three of my kids’ grandmothers when I say there are no plans to do that — and there’s little doubt the self-imposed barrier to minivan life would be significantly lower.

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