Minivan or SUV? Soccer mom-mobile or soft-roader? The choice between practicality or vanity is no longer such a stark contrast. The good-looking 2025 Kia Carnival smartens up with a new hybrid option to better compete with the uber-practical 2024 Toyota Sienna, which comes standard as a hybrid.
The Carnival’s SUV style, room, and value improve for 2025, but it also gets more expensive. The Sienna remains one of the most practical family cars on sale, priced within $1,000 of the new Carnival.
Here’s how they stack up bit by bit.
Toyota Sienna vs. Kia Carnival prices, features, and trims
- Carnival LX starts at $37,895 and runs to $53,995 for Hybrid SX Prestige
- Toyota Sienna hybrid ranges from $40,635 to $58,355
- Our picks: Kia Carnival EX, Toyota Sienna LE
Which Kia Carnival should I buy?
The base Carnival LX costs $37,895, including the mandatory $1,395 destination fee. To stay on par with the Sienna and its hybrid powertrain, we’d step up to the LXS over the base LX, since you can’t order the hybrid on that model. The 2025 Carnival LXS Hybrid costs $41,895. It’s equipped with a 12.3-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, six USB ports, heated front seats covered in synthetic leather upholstery, a power driver’s seat, eight seats, and a suite of driver-assist technology.
Fully loaded, a Carnival SX Prestige Hybrid has leather upholstery, 12-speaker Bose sound, and a surround-view camera system for $53,995.
Another advantage over the Toyota? Every Carnival comes with a 5-year/60,000-mile warranty.
2025 Toyota Sienna
Which Toyota Sienna should I buy?
The Sienna has a 3-year/36,000-mile warranty, but it includes two years or up to 25,000 miles of scheduled maintenance. That’s nice if you like your dealer.
The Sienna comes in several trims, including LE, XLE, XLE Woodland, XSE, Limited, and Platinum. The base LE costs $40,635, including a $1,450 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. It’s the best deal, and the one we’d recommend.
The Sienna XLE adds a sunroof and synthetic leather upholstery. The fancy Sienna Limited gains leather upholstery, JBL audio, navigation, and an in-car intercom. A Sienna Platinum with all-wheel drive runs nearly $60,000.
The Sienna is a better deal, barely. It can be fitted with all-wheel drive for $2,000 extra on all but the XLE Woodland, where it’s standard.
Advantage: The Sienna’s standard hybrid powertrain packs more value.
2024 Toyota Sienna
Toyota Sienna vs. Kia Carnival size, comfort, and cargo space
- Sienna: 33.5 cubic feet behind third row; 75.2 behind second row; 101 behind front row
- Carnival: 40.2 cubic feet behind third row; 86.9 behind second row; 145.1 behind front row has more cargo space, however
- Both seat up to eight passengers in comfort
In both minivans, a recessed tub in the rear can hold the collapsed third row in the floor, leaving so much more cargo room than in an SUV. Power-sliding side doors make family life easier, and can usher little ones in their child safety seats without a parent needing to break their back to put them in. Neither has the Chrysler Pacifica’s Stow ’n Go second-row seats that tuck into the floor.
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
2025 Kia Carnival
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
How big is the Kia Carnival?
It can seat seven or eight people. Most Carnivals come with a second-row bench seat with a sliding middle seat that folds down to serve as a console, or stays up to grant it eight-passenger seating. These seats can be removed, unlike in the Sienna. The second row seats slide on a track that lets you move them fore and aft, but also shift them inboard for an easy access lane to the back or away from each other for a lane down the middle. The top SX Prestige offers second-row captain’s chairs with optional collapsible leg rests. Younger kids can nap in it well enough on road trips, but an adult or a rangy teen won’t fit without tucking in.
2024 Toyota Sienna
2024 Toyota Sienna
2024 Toyota Sienna
How big is the Toyota Sienna?
The Sienna isn’t as roomy, but it has practical storage spaces everywhere, including a storage shelf across the front passenger side for phones and whatnots. It has a two-tiered center console for deep storage, too. Leather’s an option, but Kia’s is nicer.
The second-row Sienna seats have more than 25 inches of back-and-forth slide to them, the better to fit captain’s chairs with manual flip-out footrests. It works a bit better in the Sienna, though not if there’s someone in the third row. The tradeoff? The Sienna’s middle seats can’t be removed. Toyota’s solution: allow the seat bottoms to flip up, then the whole unit can slide forward against the front seat backs. Third-row access is a little more cumbersome with the Sienna’s latches.
Advantage: Kia Carnival.
2024 Toyota Sienna
Carnival vs. Sienna safety
- Both have standard automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection
- Sienna earned a Top Safety Pick+
- Surround-view camera systems can be equipped on either
The Sienna and Carnival come well-equipped with technology designed to avoid or mitigate crash impacts. They have standard automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind-spot monitors, and active lane control, but Toyota adds adaptive cruise control as standard.
How safe is the Kia Carnival?
The NHTSA still hasn’t tested the Carnival, and the IIHS gave the 2024 model a Top Safety Pick, so long as it’s fitted with the SX Prestige’s LED projector headlights. Other versions get “Poor” headlights but maintain excellent crash-test scores. We’ll update this once the 2025 model is tested.
Driver-assist options include blind-spot cameras that project side views into the instrument cluster, adaptive cruise control, high-speed automatic emergency braking, and a surround-view camera system.
How safe is the Toyota Sienna?
The Sienna earns a Top Safety Pick+ designation and a five-star NHTSA rating, though the feds found fault in its front driver impact tests..
Toyota equips the Sienna with adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitors, rear cross-traffic alerts, active lane control, and automatic high beams. Options include a surround-view camera system, head-up display, front and rear parking sensors, and a digital rearview mirror with a camera view that helps see beyond all the heads bobbing in those six rear seats.
Advantage: Toyota Sienna.
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
Kia Carnival vs. Toyota Sienna powertrains, hybrids, and performance
- Sienna has more grunt off the line but it can get loud
- The Carnival rides softer and quieter
- The Sienna can be optioned with AWD for $2,000
Is the Kia Carnival all-wheel drive?
It is not. It drives well, however, thanks to a 287-hp V-6 that couples to a smooth-shifting 8-speed automatic. Passing on the highway won’t cause you to pause, but nothing about its acceleration will surprise unwitting drivers, either. Drive modes alter the throttle response, so Sport has a tad more responsiveness, but the Carnival stakes its performance claims on a calm, comfy suspension made up of front struts and a multi-link rear. It can be exceptionally quiet on top trims, which is an advantage over the coarser Sienna. It’s a minivan through and through, however, with light if not numb steering and top-heavy handling. It feels more planted on the road than the Sienna, however. It tows 3,500 pounds.
How about the Carnival Hybrid?
A 1.6-liter turbo-4 with a 54-kw electric motor for a combined output of 242 hp and 271 lb-ft of torque. Similar to the Kia Sorento and Kia Sportage hybrids, this hybrid powertrain has a 6-speed automatic transmission with front-wheel drive only. It’s more responsive off the line than the gas Carnival, and it rides much quieter than the Sienna. Sport mode holds the gears a bit longer, so it gets louder the harder you mash the throttle, but drivers can override the automatic shifts with paddle shifters, which might be necessary on uphill passing moves. In Eco and Smart modes, those paddle shifters become regenerative braking paddles with three settings to recapture power and replenish the 1.5-kwh battery pack when coasting or braking. It tows up to 2,500 pounds, which trails the Sienna.
Is the Toyota Sienna AWD?
The Sienna’s two big powertrain advantages over the Carnival? Standard hybrid tech, and available all-wheel drive for $2,000 extra. Toyota’s hybrid setup combines a 4-cylinder with two motors and a small battery pack to net 245 hp. With AWD, a third electric motor sends power to the rear wheels independently from the engine and front wheels. The hybrid 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 the Carnival’s, but Toyota’s suspension settles into corners better, and tracks well down the highway. The Sienna’s unequivocal advantage is in fuel efficiency. The Sienna can tow 3,500 pounds
Advantage: Kia Carnival.
2025 Toyota Sienna
2025 Toyota Sienna
2025 Toyota Sienna
2025 Toyota Sienna
Sienna vs. Carnival gas mileage
- The Sienna gets 36 mpg combined with FWD or 35 mpg with AWD
- The Carnival gets 21 mpg combined; the Hybrid 33 mpg
- The Sienna is the most efficient three-row vehicle without a plug
Is the Kia Carnival good on gas?
The EPA rates the V-6 at 18 mpg city, 26 highway, 21 combined, which is worse than the brand’s burly Telluride three-row SUV that peaks at 23 mpg combined. The Hybrid rates at 34/31/33 mpg.
Is the Toyota Sienna good on gas?
It’s a hybrid, and it’s the most efficient three-row vehicle without a plug. It rates at 36 mpg across the board with front-wheel drive, or 35/36/35 mpg with AWD.
Advantage: Toyota Sienna.
2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid
Kia Carnival vs. Toyota Sienna: Which one is the better minivan?
For cost of ownership and out-the-door value, it’s hard to top the 2024 Toyota Sienna and its TCC Rating of 6.7 out of 10. It’s not as fashion-forward as the Carnival, and the Carnival has nicer top-end features as well as an overall quieter ride that helps the 2025 model earn a high TCC Rating of 6.8 out of 10, pending a safety score that should boost its average. (Read more about how we rate cars.)
