New 2025 Toyota Camry vs. Old Toyota Camry: All the Changes Side-By-Side
Toyota just unveiled its newest Camry sedan, and the omnipresent four-door is entering its ninth generation since first going on sale for the 1983 model year over 40 years ago. The most recent Camry, introduced for 2018, was the most aggressively styled ever and infused with more sportiness than any Camry before it—so, which direction did Toyota take the new 2024 model? Though the latest midsize Toyota is by the automaker’s own admission a heavily revised take on the current model, it makes a few big leaps forward, including adopting a hybrid-only powertrain lineup, new interior displays, and even sleeker styling.
We lined up the new Camry alongside the outgoing version to highlight the biggest differences inside and out:
Old Toyota Camry | Side View
It’s remarkable what a few years of crushing familiarization can do to a shape that, when it landed in 2018, was shockingly sporty for a Camry. In profile, the outgoing Toyota Camry blends expressive body lines and lighting with an upright, traditional butt and an almost blocky, conventionally sculpted hood line. It’s unabashedly a three-box sedan, even if it’s more interesting to behold than any Camry before it.
New Toyota Camry | Side View
This view best highlights how similar the new Camry and the old one are underneath—just look at the side doors and roofline. They’re essentially identical between the 2024 and 2025 Camrys, a typical sign that two cars share an underlying body structure. That isn’t to say Toyota hasn’t hidden the recycled TNGA bones well—despite the familiar shape, the new Camry looks sleeker in profile thanks to some clever visual trickery: The thinner taillights and the chamfered bumper corners and dipped hood and trunklid front and rear do a lot of the heavy lifting tightening up the look. More rounded surfaces blend nicely with the still-sharp bodyside creases, and it looks like the old Camry XSE’s available two-tone paint—with a blacked-out roof—carries over as an option on the new model, as seen here.
Old Toyota Camry | Front View
If the old Camry looks somewhat ordinary in profile, its nose is anything but. Toyota offered two basic styling packages for the last-generation Camry, with the sportier SE and XSE model wearing the grille-tastic setup pictured here and more traditionally styled LE and XLE trims wearing toned-down bumpers and wider grilles without extra corner intakes. Again, shove aside familiarity and think back to 2018: It was eye-popping for a Camry, hybrid or otherwise, to have a schnoz so thoroughly covered in grillework as to make a Porsche 911 GT3 blush. Sure, most of the black plastic mesh is actually closed off (for smoother aerodynamics and—let’s face it—no Camry engine requires that much cooling), but the look is undeniably bold for a midsize sedan.
New Toyota Camry | Front View
As before, the 2025 Camry can be outfitted with one of two separate front-end designs, again split down LE/XLE and SE/XSE lines. There is slightly less differentiation than before, however, with both variants wearing effectively the same basic look; only the details change. That means both LE/XLE and SE/XSE versions get the large C-shaped corner vents seen on the XSE here, along with the thin upper grille slot and larger lower central intake. The corner intakes aren’t as wide on the LE and XLE, however, and the sportier mesh pattern on the central grille pictured above is traded for more traditional horizontal strakes. On both, the look is cleaner and more upscale than before, with clear nods to other newer Toyota cars such as the Crown sedan and the newest Prius hybrid, particularly in the slim, wide headlights. We’d even go out on a limb and declare the grille treatment downright Lexus-like—it echoes the mesh-fading-into-bumper grille designs on the latest RX and TX SUVs.
Old Toyota Camry | Badges
Much like how the previous Camry’s look was divided along trim level lines, so, too, were its badges separated by the powertrain. Buy a gas-fed Camry—which came with either a 2.5-litre I-4 or a 3.5-litre V-6—and your sedan wore plain chrome Toyota badges front and rear. Opt for a hybrid, and those badges came with a blue accent. Hybrids also got “HYBRID” trunklid badges next to a little blue-and-chrome squiggle.
New Toyota Camry | Badges
Where before only hybrid variants wore the blue-tinged Toyota badges front and rear (as have all hybrid Toyota products for years), the new Camrys do away with it altogether. Which is strange, of course, given that you can only buy a 2025 Camry with hybrid power. The gas engine options are dead. Are we freaks who pay way too close attention to Camrys’ badges? Maybe, but the new badges do look better—their simple silver finish and three-dimensional look is more upscale than the old Camry’s pieces, which had a sticker-on-black-plastic appearance, especially up front, where the badge acted as a cover for the driver assistance system’s millimetre wave radar sensor. On the new Camry, that sensor array appears to have been moved to a better hiding spot in the thin upper grille slot.
Don’t worry, Toyota isn’t trying to hide the 2025 Camry’s hybrid-ness—there is a new “HEV” (that’s “Hybrid Electric Vehicle”) badge on the trunklid, accompanied by a small blue circle, a motif spreading throughout Toyota’s newer electrified models, including the Prius Prime plug-in hybrid and the bZ4X EV.
Old Toyota Camry | Rear View
There is a lot going on on the old Camry’s tail—starting with that faux diffuser element jutting from the lower bumper. Again, this is the sportier SE trim, but every 2018-2024 Camry got this swoopy backlight and those teardrop-tattoo-like creases dripping from each taillight. On SE and XSE models, that crease houses a faux “vent” as you see here. If we’re being sticklers, the rear bumper cut line just ahead of each of those creases/vents is something you can’t un-see—why Toyota didn’t incorporate that seam into the leading edge of those creases is beyond comprehension. We will award points for the classy dual exhaust setup stacked on the left side, old-school-BMW-style, at least on this four-cylinder SE. Lower-spec LEs adopted simpler lower bumper styling and hid their single exhaust outlets behind those pieces.
New Toyota Camry | Rear View
This is another angle that gives away the closeness between last year’s Camry and the new one. The arrangement of the taillights, trunklid, and key body cut lines is familiar, but every piece has been massaged for a more cohesive look. That bumper cut line is much better resolved here, with plenty of breathing room between it and the severe upkick at each rear corner. Look closely, and the taillights mimic the headlights’ C shapes while the license plate nacelle also mimics the nose’s angled lower grille shape. The overall effect lends the tail a flatter, more sculpted appearance, enough so that Toyota could spread out the “CAMRY” trunk lettering a little wider and leave the primary bumper surface clean and unadorned.
Old Toyota Camry | Dashboard
If the outgoing Toyota Camry’s exterior styling had a lot of a lot, then wait until you sit inside one. The dashboard is a riot of curves, angles, mismatched switchgear, and materials. Working from knee level up, there is a grained hard plastic, followed by a smoother plastic on the centre console, a greyish bit on that S-curve working from the cupholders up to the gauge cluster and up around the air vents, some stitched upholstering beneath each of those side air vents, piano black stuff on the air conditioning control panel and touchscreen, and finally a squishier plastic atop the dash. In old-school Toyota fashion, there are buttons that are a generation or two past their sell-by dates (those chunkier pieces on the window switch array) mixed in amongst newer switchgear (like the smaller buttons on the HVAC panel and around the touchscreen), kept around because they’re not broken—so why replace ’em? In a similar fashion, the digital gauge cluster screen doesn’t quite match the resolution or colour schemes on the central touchscreen. Still, the dashboard is anything but boring.
New Toyota Camry | Dashboard
Toyota cleaned up the Camry’s dashboard significantly this time around, straightening out most of the bigger lines to suit the rectilinear gauge cluster and touchscreen displays. Even the steering wheel gets squarer spokes and buttons. If you peer closely enough, you’ll find more of that “ain’t broke, so we [Toyota] didn’t fix it!” parts recycling, namely the row of buttons to the left of the steering wheel and around the shift lever, but enough of the rest of the dashboard is so new you probably won’t notice. The air conditioning panel trades the last-gen Camry’s small, chiclet-shaped buttons spread out on a triangular panel for slightly larger pieces that are now closely crammed together in a tight horizontal row. Toyota giveth ergonomics, and Toyota taketh them away. Entry-level LE and SE Camrys get a smaller 7.0-inch digital gauge cluster and an 8.0-inch touchscreen, while XLE and XSE variants get the larger 12.3-inch units pictured here.
Old Toyota Camry | Interior
The Toyota can be very well equipped. All those buttons we poked fun at control myriad convenience features not found on most of the new Accord lineup. Hybrid models also included an EV mode button behind the shift lever, which could lock the powertrain into using only its electric motors for short bursts at lower speeds, though the system could automatically drop into EV mode at its discretion at faster speeds in the regular hybrid mode. Rear seat space in the old Camry is adequate, with decent (though not quite Accord-matching) legroom and a nice cushion height. Unlike the latest Accord, the Camry offered rear-seat air vents and USB ports; those niceties are limited to the range-topping Accord Touring—a veritable sin on such a large car.
New Toyota Camry | Interior
Given how the 2025 Camry is, effectively, a 2024 Camry in fresher drag, we suspect cabin space to remain virtually the same. That said, equipment levels take a big leap forward, especially on the standard side of things. Even the base Camry LE an SE models get the aforementioned digital gauge cluster displays, plus dual-zone climate control, a Qi wireless phone charger, 16-inch aluminium wheels, LED headlights, and a smart key with pushbutton starting. The SE ups that game with 18-inch wheels, a sport suspension, faux leather seat accents, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and aluminium pedals. The XLE and XSE upgrade to 18- and 19-inch wheels, respectively, as well as the 12.3-inch gauge display and central touchscreen, LED taillights, leather seating that’s heated and power-adjustable up front, proximity key entry, and front and front side acoustic laminated glass. As before, the Toyota Safety Sense active safety suite is standard across the lineup and includes automated emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, lane-keep assist, auto high beams, and adaptive cruise control.
Old Toyota Camry | Powertrains
Toyota’s Camry lineup was crowded with choices—there were effectively parallel product lines, one with gas power and the other with hybrid motivation. The entry-level gas version was powered by a 2.5-litre I-4 engine with an eight-speed automatic transmission and produced between 202 and 206 hp and 182 and 186 lb-ft of torque depending on trim; the all-wheel drive was optional only with those four-cylinder engines. Toyota was an outlier in continuing to offer its midsize sedan with a naturally aspirated V-6 engine, in this case, a 3.5-litre good for 301 hp and 267 lb-ft of torque; the V-6 came standard on the sportiest Camry TRD model.
The Camry hybrid delivered markedly better fuel economy than either gas-only option, combining a 2.5-litre I-4 with a pair of electric motors and a planetary-type continuously variable automatic transmission to spin the front tires. The gas engine contributed 176 hp and 163 lb-ft of torque, while the primary electric motor added in 118 hp and 149 lb-ft; stir in the third motor, a starter-generator, and total system output stood at a decent 208 hp.
New Toyota Camry | Powertrain
Wave goodbye to the Camry’s I-4 and V-6 engines. They’re survived by a revised 2.5-liter hybrid setup that ups total output to 225 hp. That power figure applies to front-wheel-drive 2025 Toyota Camrys. We specify because, for the first time, the Camry Hybrid is available with optional all-wheel drive. As on most of Toyota’s AWD hybrids, this setup combines the standard hybrid powertrain powering the front axle with a third electric motor that lives on its own on the rear axle. The rear axle motor helps up the AWD Camry Hybrid’s output to 232 hp and delivers an on-demand traction boost.
Why go all-hybrid? Besides simplifying manufacturing, Toyota’s decision here lines up with rival Honda’s thinking on the latest Accord, which dropped the old version’s available turbocharged 2.0-litre I-4—a powerful option and the de-facto competitor to the Camry’s V-6—and expanded its hybrid offerings. Like Toyota, Honda previously sold parallel Accord lineups, one gas-fed, the other hybrid. Now the majority of the Accord lineup is hybrid-powered, leaving only the cheapest two trim levels with the previous Accord’s lower-output engine choice. The new 2025 Toyota Camry’s hybrid setup matches up nicely with the Accord’s, easily beating its 204 hp figure and one-upping it further with optional AWD (the Honda is front-drive-only).
