The long-popular Camry has been Toyota's U.S. lineup bedrock for decades. While other automakers such as Ford Motor Co., General Motors, and Stellantis have reduced or eliminated sedans in recent years, Toyota continues to offer the midsize Camry. The 2025 model year sees a heavy mid-cycle refresh and facelift, significant updates to infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), chassis refinements, and switches to an all-hybrid powertrain.
Recently, I drove the 2025 Toyota Camry during a two-day media event in and around San Diego, California.
Read our full 2025 Toyota Camry preview for more background and details.
Photo: Ron Sessions
For 2025, the Camry is available in LE, SE, XLE, and XSE trim levels. Including the $1,095 destination charge, pricing for the front-wheel-drive (FWD) versions is as follows:
All-wheel drive (AWD) is a $1,525 upcharge available on all trims. The 2025 Toyota Camry goes on sale in May 2024. The final assembly location is Georgetown, Kentucky.
For this review, I drove a 2025 Camry XSE AWD priced at $42,220, including the optional Premium Plus package, two-tone paint (black roof), premium primary color paint, and the $1,095 destination charge.
Photo: Ron Sessions
To my eye, the 2025 iteration of the Toyota Camry is the sharpest yet. No more busy-looking kitty nose and whiskers grille design. It's got a shark nose (like its Crown sedan and Prius stablemates), lizard eyes, and a bottom-breather maw up front with a sleek coupe-like roofline and playful kick-up tail. It is not quite the apex predator, but it won't be dismissed as a blue-rinse special, especially in XSE trim, with its body-color grille and dual-outlet exhaust.
Judging by the new Camry's looks, someone's having fun in Toyota's color and trim department. The XSE test car's Heavy Metal and black two-tone paint and Cockpit Red cabin alone must be good for another 50-or-so mental horsepower.
The dashboard is more squared-off and purposeful-looking than the prior generation's sweeping perpendicular-themed iteration. Both the driver (now digital) and center infotainment displays are larger. Toyota did a better job integrating them into the dashboard, as they no longer look like they're sitting on top.
Although you now access most of the infotainment functions digitally, the remaining switchgear the driver interacts with is well-sorted, logically arrayed, and large enough to tap quickly on the fly. Up front are one USB-A media port and a pair of USB-C charge ports for the inevitable mobile electronic devices. A wireless charger for Qi-enabled smartphones is standard.
Toyota rejiggered the front bucket seats for the 2025 model year, using lower-density foam in some areas for increased comfort and higher-density material for added support in others. In 70-plus miles of driving, the driver's perch delivered on those two fronts as advertised.
The car’s interior room remains roughly the same as the prior model, with ample space for up to five adults, as any midsize four-door sedan should have.
The standard dual-zone automatic climate-control system provides rear-seat passengers with their own air vents. They also have access to one each USB-A and USB-C charge ports.
Interior storage is more than adequate with a pair of cupholders, a flat tray in front of the shifter, a deep bin under the center console armrest, a roomy glovebox, and pockets and bottle holders in the doors. The trunk remains at a midsize-sedan-appropriate 15.1 cubic feet, with what looks like space for airport roller bags for all five passengers. The rear seats fold down to accommodate longer objects.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Sliding behind the wheel, you immediately notice the more prominent, horizontal-format infotainment screen. It measured 12.3 inches in the XSE test car; lesser trims get an 8-inch one. Both retain a simple-to-use-on-the-fly analog rotary volume knob but sadly lose the rotary tuning knob. You learn to use the steering-wheel controls and excellent voice control instead.
My co-driver and I easily and quickly paired both of our phones. With equal ease, he connected his wirelessly to Apple CarPlay, and later on, after a driver swap, I grabbed Android Auto wirelessly for my Samsung phone. The standard console-mounted phone charger was handy as my co-driver's phone was low on charge. It's nice not to have the USB cable clutter, allowing me to keep my phone in my pocket.
The test car had an active Drive Connect subscription for the excellent Cloud Navigation (free for the first year on XSE and XLE, extra cost after that), continuously updated Google point-of-interest data, and "Hey, Toyota" destination assist. The latter came in handy for directions when I made a wrong turn later in the day and found the hotel by name only without my knowing the street address or town. It needs an available 4G network, however, to function.
Of course, you can always use the voice assistant, POI search, or maps from Apple or Google for free on your paired phone.
The loaded XSE test car came with the $4,075 Premium Plus package, which, in addition to a lot of safety and convenience content, includes a rich-sounding JBL nine-speaker premium audio system. The JBL system is indeed a good addition.
All 2025 Camrys get upgraded to standard Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 (TSS 3.0) from the prior year's TSS 2.5+. Also, blind-spot warning and rear cross-traffic warning—previously extra-cost on LE and SE—are now standard across the board.
One of the additions with TSS 3.0 is Proactive Driving Assist. Using the Camry's forward-facing radar and a front camera, it can proactively, without driver involvement, slow for curves or slower-moving or stopped traffic ahead even before the driver notices the potential issue. While running down a curvy rural highway, I was surprised by a slow-moving truck moving around a sharp curve. The Camry, however, took action, slowing down before I knew I had to.
The optional Premium Plus package adds eight more safety and driving-assistance features, some of which I feel are must-haves. One is a surround-view camera that provides an overhead view of the Camry and its immediate surroundings. Also good to have are rear cross-traffic braking and rear parking assistance with auto braking, which applied the brakes when I missed the vehicular or human cross-traffic warnings while backing up at the drive event.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The term “continuous improvement” springs to mind when describing how the 2025 Toyota Camry drives. By eliminating the previous model's gas-only base four-cylinder and uplevel V6 powertrain choices and switching the new Camry to all gas-electric hybrid propulsion, Toyota doubles down on its Beyond Zero Vision commitment to an expanded lineup of electrified vehicles with a reduced carbon footprint.
It also helps in these times of volatile gas prices that every 2025 Camry has an EPA-estimated combined rating of at least 44 mpg, ranging up to 51 mpg. Factor in the new 13-gallon gas tank, and that gives it a theoretical driving range approaching—and with some trims, exceeding—600 miles.
Advances in the standard hybrid powertrain in the 2025 Camry include a more powerful electric motor, which adds a quicker throttle response, and AWD—previously available only with the gas-powered four-cylinder engine.
The increase in hybrid system output for the 2025 model year is modest yet significant. It rises from 208 net horsepower in the 2024 Camry Hybrid to the 2025 model's 225 net hp (FWD) or 232 net hp (AWD).
With more balanced handling and the traction advantages afforded by AWD, the new Camry felt more sure-footed on Southern California dry roads than in past iterations.
The slightly stiffer suspension tuning (springs and shocks), thicker rear stabilizer bar, and front strut tower brace on the XSE test car (and fitted to the SE trim as well) imparted a feeling of steering precision and well-damped controllability, allowing a more spirited pace through serpentine stretches with a bit more verve if not the tenacity of the previously available TRD variant.
I also spent some time behind the wheel of a Camry LE, which, along with the XLE, keeps a softer, comfort-focused suspension tune that should continue to resonate with the model's more traditional buyers.
The 2025 Camry's brakes are better too. Despite using the same-size four-wheel disc setup as before, the response is more linear and more straightforward to modulate. This is thanks to advancements in the blending of the hydraulic brakes and retardation as a result of the regenerative charging of the Camry's new Gen 5 hybrid system.
The new Camry is also quiet on the road. All trims get an acoustic, noise-reducing windshield, and XLE and XSE trims also add sound-insulating glass to the front door windows.
With its 2025 mid-cycle update, the Toyota Camry adds style, driving refinement, and upgraded infotainment, safety, and advanced driving-assistance technology. The all-hybrid lineup and the ability to pair it with on-demand AWD reinforce the notion that Toyota's long-running midsize sedan offers compelling value for buyers who are smart with their money.
The improvements for 2025 also make the Camry a strong competitor to other midsize sedans such as the Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Kia K5, and Nissan Altima.
Ron Sessions is a seasoned vehicle evaluator with more than four decades of experience. In addition to his contributions to jdpower.com, he has penned hundreds of road tests and buyer's guide reviews for Road & Track, MotorTrend, Car and Driver, and AutoTrader.
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