After the reports about America's automotive industry came in for the first six months of the year, it turns out that Toyota is edging closer and closer to General Motors and feels ready to steal its delivery crown. However, some departments need to improve before it achieves its goal.
A little over 100k vehicles were between GM and Toyota during H1 of 2024, and the Japanese automaker has some clear winners and losers – the usual suspects for positive records were, as always, the RAV4, Corolla, or Camry. However, the Tacoma mid-size pickup truck fell drastically even though it still held to its throne – to the point where Toyota sold more Tundras during that time!
Also, the second best-selling SUV wasn't one you would expect – it was the ultra-old N280 Toyota 4Runner! Anyway, the company is also one of the few automakers in America that still offers a minivan in the lineup. The Toyota Sienna is suffering – minivans were all the rage in the 1980s, but it's been four decades since then, and nowadays, they're a pale shadow of their former selves. This dying breed has exactly four players on the US market – Chrysler's Pacifica, Honda's Odyssey, Toyota's Sienna, and the Kia Carnival.
The sales positions were also the same, with Toyota improving Sienna's performance by 17.6% to almost 33k units – which was still not enough to beat Honda's 39k units or Chrysler's 70,882 deliveries. As such, it is only logical that Toyota will seek to do something to at least reach out and grab second place in Honda's Odyssey. A facelift might do wonders, for example.
The current iteration, the fourth since Toyota started producing the Sienna minivan in 1997, has been around since 2020 as a 2021 model year, but it has already grown a bit long in the tooth, even though it has a wacky styling for the headlights and taillights. No worries, the rumor mill believes a refresh is just around the corner, and the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is already trying to envision the looks across the parallel universes of vehicular CGI. So, the good folks over at the AutoYa info channel on YouTube have a satellite venue dubbed AutoYa Interior, and that's where all the (CGI) Sienna action is now.
Still based on the TNGA-K modular architecture and produced for the United States in Princeton, Indiana at TMMI, this unofficial, hypothetical 2025 or 2026 Toyota Sienna receives a different, quirkier style for the headlights – probably inspired by the latest real-world models like Prius or Crown, a new bumper treatment with side gills, a larger radiator grille, as well as a bundle of fresh exterior colors.
Inside, the host asked the channel's resident pixel master to redesign the steering wheel and implement a much wider central display with touchscreen capabilities. Naturally, the traditional color reel is present here also. So, which is your favorite exterior-interior CGI combination?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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