Rental car review - 2025 Toyota Camry SE Hybrid - middling fuel economy

[pezzy84]

So backstory is my family is all in Minnesota and I live in Georgia so I routinely make the trek up there. They all live in the northern part of the state and Delta (also when it was Northwest) charges a major premium for the beyond Minneapolis flights, many times it is ends up being cheaper to fly into Minneapolis and rent a car for the 2 hour drive so I have done it more times than I can count. I have had all variety of cars over the years on the same trek so my results are pretty static as far as fuel economy. Because I was concerned about my fuel consumption this trip I made it a point to ask the guy at Alamo what my options were, he stated that in my class they had Malibu, Altima or Camry - I just told him "anything but the Malibu" as I have had pleasant experiences with Altima and Camry. I was supremely pleased when he pulled around a 2025 Camry SE, I knew Toyota went all hybrid with the new generation Camry and I have always had very positive Camry rental experiences previously.

Drive and ride: Toyota dialed out the mushiness with the last generation Camry. In SE guise they truly ride and drive firm, composed and compliant like a German car. Steering is direct but lacks communication of what is happening, it's kind of a fake heft without feel. The only negative I will say is that with the 19" wheels and low profile tires it really crashed over ruts, potholes and manhole covers, it was a smooth ride when the road surface was not bad.

Interior & Infotainment: Interior was actually a quite nice place to be, soft touch surfaces and quite a bit of cloth to soften door cards, dash, etc. Infotainment had a very small screen for the price point and was awful for usability. Even the 2021-2023 VW ID.4 software suite is leaps and bounds better than a 2025 Camry. I have had a 2023 Corolla as a rental as well and I will die on the hill that Toyota interface is far worse than what ID.4 folks complain about. The ~14k mile Camry I had as a rental had a horrific drivers door panel rattle with every single bass hit (even small bass hits). Doors feel like tin cans and sound cheap upon closing.

Powertrain: 2.5 liter 4 banger hooked up with from what I understand 2 electric motors. Drives like every other CVT 4 banger with the only difference being it favors electric driving at low speeds. Does have some good oomph and can scoot quite nicely. Nothing to write home about and it doesn't sound great when you pump it down.

Fuel economy: My first and morning of second day I was be-bopping around Minneapolis area and my ending average fuel economy was 49.8MPG which was incredible as I was beating EPA, this was ~220 miles into my trip and I was very excited to get above 40 MPG. Then I hopped on the freeway for long stretches, over the next 330 miles of pure freeway at 75 MPH my average dragged right on down to 37.9 MPG per the car (37.3 per hand calculations). I have done better in a non-hybrid Altima (40 MPG) and non-hybrid Sonata (39 MPG) and it was only 3 MPG better than the last generation AWD Camry 2.5 I had last year. The Toyota hybrid system is dead weight and drag when you just sit on the freeway at a static speed for hours on end.

Overall cliffs notes: New Camry only comes as hybrid now which is great in the overall scheme of normal daily use. Unfortunately if you plant yourself on the freeway for hours on end the hybrid system is dead weight and the fuel economy matches that of similar engine size vehicles. My real world highway economy was 21% below EPA rating of 47 MPG, meanwhile Altima and Sonata non-hybrids beat their own EPA estimates. Camry per usual is a great drive but the fuel economy was very disappointing.

 

[cptbarkey]

Hmm, that is a bit disappointing. Back in 2020 I rented a regular Camry for dirt cheap and was easily getting 40mpg at 85mph on I-10 from El Paso to Austin.

 

[FrankinMi]

I have this right now from Enterprise... car is quick... love the ride

 

[eljefino]

I see it was 25'F per your dash. My Prius really dips in MPG pushing through thick, cold air. Do you have data from all seasons worth of trips?

 

[pezzy84]

Hmm, that is a bit disappointing. Back in 2020 I rented a regular Camry for dirt cheap and was easily getting 40mpg at 85mph on I-10 from El Paso to Austin.

Same - had a 7th generation Camry (2014) with 2.5 and it pulled down 38 MPG doing a similar highway run from Atlanta-Nashville-Atlanta. Prior gen engine was also smoother overall - the new Dynamic Force or whatever they called are kind of gruff in comparison.

 

[pezzy84]

I see it was 25'F per your dash. My Prius really dips in MPG pushing through thick, cold air. Do you have data from all seasons worth of trips?

It varies but yeah the Altima and Sonata were in spring/fall weather that were closer to the 30-40/50F range so yeah may have something to do with it. Camry Hybrid was still a solid 21% below EPA estimates though so that is a pretty hard hit that I don't believe can be fully explained away by cold temps.

 

[meep]

Great writeup @pezzy84. The mileage numbers I guess kinda make sense - hybrids typically don’t have an interstate advantage. Still, I think the numbers are quite good, especially considering the vehicle weight and in-town advantages.

Was this an AWD or FWD model?

 

[pezzy84]

Great writeup @pezzy84. The mileage numbers I guess kinda make sense - hybrids typically don’t have an interstate advantage. Still, I think the numbers are quite good, especially considering the vehicle weight and in-town advantages.

Was this an AWD or FWD model?

Thank you! This was a FWD model. Yeah the pure freeway driving just killed any of the hybrid efficiency, basically the same economy as any other 2.5 4 cylinder midsize car.

 

[brages]

My Accord hybrid hates cold weather, several low 30s tanks this winter, looks like I might hit 40 indicated (41+ actual) on this tank with milder weather.

 

[ATex7239]

My Toyota hybrid dislikes the cold weather but enjoys the winter holidays.

 

[andrew_j]

You don’t have enough data honestly to determine that MPG on highway is what you found in your tiny sample.

Might be quite better(guessing case) or possibly worst.

 

[Hermann]

If it was 25° and your speed was 75 mph and if there is a strong headwind that is pretty good. Try it in the summer and it will be 5-7 mpg better at least. Hybrid batteries hate anything under freezing, they run the engine a lot more than normal to keep them warm.

 

[raaizin]

I think you had unrealistic expectations for the car. It is a hybrid which excels in stop and start traffic. It is not designed for optimal mpg on the highway. It was only a couple of mpg off a non hybrid which could be attributed to temperature, mph or even headwind.I had a coworker buy a Honda civic hybrid when they first were sold for a 60 mile one way highway commute and was disappointed with mpg. He obviously bought the wrong car for his intended purpose.

 

[Zee09]

Yup cold weather and speed..
My VW 2L turbo will do low 40 mpgs on the interstate. My old C-Max Hybrid was only 36 to 38 mpg on the interstate.

Pretty typical....nice write up.

 

[brages]

I just reserved a "full sized" car in San Diego in April (USMC graduation!) from Budget. They said Camry or similar. Hope it's the Camry; I love hybrids.

 

[BryanTDI12]

Made a trek in a 2025 Camry SE hybrid from Arizona to Colorado this December and over the course of 1800 miles, averaged 43mph (hand calculated) doing 80-85mph with cruise set on the interstate. It was a warm spell hovering around 60-70F but still impressed with the mpg. Sounds like the cold really impacts the mpg. Did you use the auto climate control? I find it to help with winter mpg

 

[JHZR2]

I see it was 25'F per your dash. My Prius really dips in MPG pushing through thick, cold air. Do you have data from all seasons worth of trips?

It depends on if you use the heat. I swapped tires, remember that thread??? Many blamed it on cold… it wasn’t. I just got 70.8 in my Honda Accord Hybrid on a non trivial low speed drive, in the mid 30s with my old tires on, running no heat. I think that was a trip record for me - usually I’d get in the 60s for that, 40s for all highway.

Force the engine on and it will be a consumer.

Leave the engine off, it will do better.

Not denying that cold can affect it somewhat, but I suspect the Camry is just too big. In engine or vehicle size.

 

[MFHORN]

I have a 2025 Camry FWD LE with stock 16" Goodyear Assurance tires at 40psi. She needs good conditions to get 50mpg at speeds around 70 to 80mph. But on my 15 mile trips on paved backroads going 55 and under, it regularly gets in the high 50s, and even in the mid 60s at times. I got 78mpg once on a 15-mile trip. Get it up to 55, then back off on the throttle and let the battery power take over, and it's amazing. I just averaged 50 mpg in a michigan winter with a mix of city and freeway driving. Once it warms up, and if there's any truth to summer blend fuel being better for MPGs, then I expect it to go even higher. I coast to stop signs a lot, and am hardly even using the brakes. I'm a better driver now with this car; not in a rush. It promotes that kind of driving. There's things I don't like, like the infotainment which is clunky going from radio to iphone tunes. Carplay works good enough for directions though. The Accord interior is far superior in usability and for staying out of your way and ease of use. But this Camry is good enough. Heated seats and steering wheel were really nice to have this past winter. And the power adjustable driver's seat is great- love the lumbar support. I hope the battery makes it to at least 200,000 miles, and am hoping for 250,000. It's quiet too. Excellent sound insulation at most speeds and conditions. All for 30k plus TTL, and I left $1000 on the table...

 

[brages]

I just reserved a "full sized" car in San Diego in April (USMC graduation!) from Budget. They said Camry or similar. Hope it's the Camry; I love hybrids.

Budget told me I could get a Sonata for the reserved price, or for $10/day I could upgrade to the Camry Hybrid. I went ahead and got the hybrid.

I have been driving my 2019 Accord Hybrid with 250k+ miles regularly, so it was an interesting comparison for me.

For low-speed driving my high-miles HAH is quite a bit smoother. Vibrations from the motor are isolated and you really get a EV-like feel when driving around town. The rental Camry gave some vibrations from the engine and it really didn't sound too great when you were pushing it hard. On the highway, I believe the Camry has a bit more power than the HAH, although both give a very CVT-like lag when you ask for power. This lag takes a lot of the fun out of "spirited driving" IMO.

The Camry seemed to go into EV mode a lot more willingly than the 2010 Prius I have. And it was of course a lot quieter and smoother than that car. I couldn't figure out how to display battery charge level. But I could set the dash to show engine RPM rather than charge/power. Also, the dash shows engine temperature - my Prius and HAH only give you an idiot light.

My HAH is a Touring model, pretty well loaded. But the rental Camry was an SE - very basic. The only feature I hated was that I had to fish out my key fob to lock/unlock the doors and even to release the trunk when the car was unlocked (???). I also didn't quite get comfortable in the Camry seats, but they were OK I guess. The sound system was really quite good in the Camry, a little bass-heavy but the equal IMO of my fancy Touring Accord system.

It's hard for me to compare the ride quality of the Camry with under 10k miles to my Accord with over 250k. And the roads in San Diego aren't full of the cracks and potholes of our local roads. I'd say the Accord is actually a little bit quieter ride, although I believe the Touring trim gets acoustic glass that might help things. I think the Accord may be a sharper handler, but both cars drive like full-sized cars - neither are really great handling vehicles.

Toyota's current Smart Sense or whatever is really good. I liked it a lot on the Corolla I drove for a few weeks last year. On my Hondas, you have to turn on the LKAS on each drive but it seems like Toyota will remember whether you left it on or not. The adaptive cruise on the Honda is much jerkier and the LKAS doesn't hold center nearly as well, either. But my Hondas are from 2016 and 2019, so they might be an earlier generation of this tech.

Driving around town, I was seeing mpgs in the 50s with the car saying I was using EV mode 75-80% of the time. But we took a trip out of town for a hike and the mpgs dropped into the 40s. I ended up using about a half a tank of gas during my rental, so I would have been money well ahead with the Sonata, even with California gas at nearly $5/gal.

Overall, I think this is one of the best cars you can buy. I believe the hybrid system doesn't have quite the smoothness or low-speed pep of Honda's novel setup, but on the other hand it's more suited for driving over all circumstances - hilly roads will knock the HAH out of direct-drive and fuel economy really suffers IME.

 

[RhondaHonda]

I like to think of how slow a gallon jug of liquid has to drip for an hour to get 50, 60, 70 miles per gallon. When think of how little fuel you are actually using over that distance, it’s pretty impressive.