2025 Toyota Camry Is Why Sedans Remain Relevant in the US
For the first time, Toyota’s Camry goes hybrid only but retains the available all-wheel drive.
We observed 48 mpg in real-world fuel economy during a 36-mile jaunt back to downtown San Diego in a 2025 Camry XLE AWD.
Production of the 2025 Toyota Camry has just started at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, and sales begin in May.
The 2025 Camry, styled at studios in Newport Beach, California, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, sits low and hugs the ground, and the optional 19-inch alloy wheels fill out the wheel wells. Headlamps across the industry are seemingly disappearing into narrow, pointed, shafts of light, and that execution works well on the new Camry.
Crimps in the sheetmetal are applied at just the right spots, cascading inward down the hood and along the beltline. And the design elements on the rear quarter panels appear to be pulled taut as they converge at the back. While the Camry has a standard trunk lid hinged below the rear window, this design could have also worked as a liftback.
In past years, the Camry may have not been described as a sport sedan, but the term fits now. This purposeful styling on the outside carries over to the cabin with a number of tasteful design flourishes, such as the horizontal fluted trim that flows neatly into the air vent on the passenger-side instrument panel.
An available 12.3-inch multimedia touchscreen blends nicely into the dashboard, but many shoppers will appreciate the hard buttons for climate control positioned below the screen, as well as an actual volume knob along the left side of the touchscreen.
The 2025 Camry XLE AWD we drove near San Diego last week (sticker priced at $40,780 with destination, including a $4760 Premium Plus package) featured a handsome two-tone off-white and black interior punctuated with a soft checkerboard pattern trim on the front doors and instrument panel. Subtle, but very effective.
Unless you really need to spend more for the Lexus badge on your sedan, Toyota’s best-selling four-door does quite nicely, both inside and out, in the aesthetic department.
There are other reasons to like the new Camry. How about 48 mpg in real-world fuel economy during a 36-mile jaunt back to downtown San Diego?
It wasn’t long ago that V6 power was standard in this segment, but lately the four-cylinders have taken over, with very few compromises. Pair up a capable 2.5-liter DOHC I4 with a 100-kW electric motor (with 208 Nm of torque) powered by a lithium-ion battery, and you can sail on past lots of gas stations with a combined 232 hp with on-demand all-wheel drive (or 225 hp with front-wheel drive).
The best fuel-economy rating for the 2025 Camry is the LE FWD trim, at 53/50 mpg city/highway. At the low end is the XSE AWD trim, certified at 44/43 mpg. The only way to buy this new Camry is as a hybrid.
Since the Prius first reached American shores in 2020, Toyota has owned the hybrid space more than any other automaker, especially now as hybrids find their way into just about every new Toyota, including the pickup trucks and even the new Land Cruiser and 4Runner.
The brand’s early hybrids came along with ragged continuously variable transmissions that reacted to throttle inputs with more noise than actual propulsion, and the engine would cycle on and off much too abruptly.
But the powertrain team has dialed in a much better formula for smoothly accelerating, decelerating, and cruising with this fifth-generation hybrid system, thanks to increased power from the lithium-ion traction battery.
I was behind the wheel for 20 minutes before I realized this new two-motor CVT—and all the necessary programming to integrate with the engine—was doing its job without me even noticing. I thought I would miss the conventional eight-speed automatic from the previous Camry. A third electric motor is added at the rear axle for AWD models.
Where does this powertrain go from here? The Camry could do fine with a 2.0-liter engine (like in the new Prius), especially if more juice can be applied to the hybrid side to boost fuel economy.
But for now, Toyota has positioned the Camry to maintain its front-runner status among midsize sedans.
Full Disclosure: I’m a sedan guy. A lot of sedans were frumpy, boat-like, and boring in the 1970s, but I met a girl in 1985 whose family had a new, light blue Honda Civic sedan, and I connected with that car immediately. I sorely miss my 1996 Nissan Maxima with the five-speed manual and my 2011 Mazda6. But my 2016 Mazda6 Grand Touring is going strong with its 19-inch smoked alloy rims, and I could argue that it’s the best-looking sedan on the road.
As SUVs and pickup trucks have gotten ridiculously large—and as smaller, anonymous crossovers are now a dime a dozen—I find myself even more enamored with the three-box body style for aesthetic reasons, for the fuel economy and aerodynamics, and for better handling with a lower center of gravity. And the trunk of a midsize sedan can handle a Costco run, no problem.
Despite being all-new, the Camry carries over certain dimensions, including wheelbase (111.2 inches), overall width (72.4 inches), and EPA cargo volume (15.1 cubic feet). The new Camry is slightly longer overall (at 193.5 inches); AWD models now sit a bit lower (at 56.9 inches tall); and ground clearance is down as well (to 5.4 inches). Curb weight changes little from the previous model, with the range-topping XSE trim being the heaviest, at 3538 pounds.
There are four trim levels for the new Camry: LE, SE, XLE, and XSE, and the last two are quieter inside, thanks to standard front-side acoustic laminated glass to reduce wind noise and harshness.
Standard safety features across all trims include blind-spot monitor and rear cross-traffic alert, while other driver-assistance technologies (such as dynamic radar cruise control, pre-collision with pedestrian detection, and lane-departure alert), are available in some of the 10 feature packages offered.
Toyota says the base 2025 Camry LE FWD with a starting price of $29,495 with destination represents a price cut of $400 compared with the outgoing Camry Hybrid base grade, while including more standard features.
But at the other end of the range, the $37,220 starting point for the 2025 Camry XSE AWD is about $1800 more expensive than its 2024 counterpart. Production of the new Camry has just started at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, and sales begin in May.
Toyota says its Camry has dominated the midsize sedan segment for 22 years in the US, which probably explains why Chevrolet, Buick, Ford, Lincoln, and Chrysler have largely (or completely) abandoned the segment.
True, Toyota sold more than 290,000 Camry sedans in 2023 in the US, topping the No.2 Honda Accord by nearly 100,000 units. Toyota also sold 435,000 RAV4s in the US in 2023, which generates enough cashflow to keep sedans like the Camry available to shoppers.
Does the new Toyota Camry pique your curiosity about a sedan? Please comment below.
