Let’s face it: Toyota’s product cycles can be loooooonnnnnnggggg — among the lengthiest in the industry — and as woven into the automaker’s culture as is the Toyota Production System and the notion of Genchi Genbutsu (go see for yourself).
As a company, Toyota prefers the strategy of continuous improvement in its products, making small changes as necessary as a vehicle ages between generations but saving big changes for the next redesign.
If nothing else, it’s a profit-rich strategy that maximizes the return on almost every investment, so long as customers keep buying. But it has a side effect: When a long-in-the-tooth Toyota does finally get that overdue redesign, the results can be, well … jarring.
Case in point: The 2021 Toyota Sienna minivan, which is so much better in almost every respect from the 2020 Sienna that dealers would be wise to clear out their entire remaining inventory before parking the new ones where customers can see them.
It’s not that the third-generation Sienna was particularly bad, it was just old. It’s infotainment system, its powertrain, its interior design were all mired early in the previous decade — it debuted in 2010 — very similar to the way the Dodge Grand Caravan compared with a luxed-up Chrysler Pacifica. That’s not a bad strategy if you’ve got an alternative product to offer, as segment leader FCA did when it kept the Grand Caravan soldiering on well past its expiration date.
Consider the respective jump in fuel efficiency. The 2020 Sienna was one of Toyota’s last non-hybridized vehicles, and it showed at the pump with a combined fuel-economy rating of just 21 mpg in front-wheel-drive form and 20 mpg with all-wheel drive. With the redesign onto the TNGA-K platform, the 2021 Sienna gets a standard hybrid powertrain and a jump to 36 mpg combined in fwd and 35 mpg combined with awd — up to a 75 percent improvement.
It’s a similar story inside the spacious and well-appointed cabin. The outgoing Sienna’s cockpit and dashboard looked like a static display hung on a wall, and in many ways, it was. There was a physical separation between the dash and the center console — a bit of exposed carpeting on the floor that didn’t really have a functional purpose except as a place to let things get knocked over.
In the 2021 Sienna, designers built a horizontal “bridge” console that surrounds and wraps the driver and places a panoply of useful storage and technology within easy reach. That lost piece of carpeting, too, was replaced with a large open storage area between the seats, complete with its own available power outlet.
With the infotainment system, the generational upgrade is just as remarkable. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are now standard, as is dynamic navigation, with a crisp and clean interface on a 9-inch touch screen, with graphics that no longer look as if they were rendered with Windows 98.
Like its exterior styling, the Sienna’s driver-assist and safety systems received a generational upgrade, with Toyota Safety Sense 2.0 standard, including blind spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, pre-collision loading and rear cross-traffic alert.
Oh, and because it’s a minivan, there are seven USB ports, a wireless charging pad and so many cupholders — 18 — that the 2021 Sienna probably ought to be available with its own on-board bathroom. Sadly, this option is missing, though an on-board refrigerator and vacuum are available.
If the redesigned 2021 Sienna falls down among peers in the minivan segment, it is because the second-row seats don’t recess into the floor as FCA’s Stow N’ Go seats do on most of its minivans.
Yet the Sienna is still able to pass the segment’s critical plywood test: a 4-by-8-foot sheet of building material will fit in the Sienna if both the second- and third-row seats are collapsed to their midpoint. The Sienna makes up for the feature with second-row seats that can slide far enough back to extend an available leg rest.
Toyota estimates that there are more than 1.9 million Siennas still in operation, some as old as 1998 models, and that the average age of those Siennas is in excess of 10 years. The automaker also estimates that owner loyalty among its minivan customers is 68 percent. For dealers, that’s a sizable set of potential customers driving what are now antiquated minivans, thanks to the redesign.
The 2021 Sienna is available in five trim levels: LE, XLE, XSE, Limited and Platinum. Pricing will start at $35,635 for the fwd version and $37,635 for awd. The Sienna will begin arriving in U.S. dealerships next month.