Compared: 2023 Toyota Crown vs. 2023 Toyota Venza

The revived Crown sedan is so tall, it's practically a crossover.

Beth Nichols | 

Dec 13, 2023 | 3 min read

Toyota

If you're in the Toyota showroom looking at the Venza midsize two-row SUV, it's possible that the salesperson will encourage you to spend a few minutes with the new-for-2023 Crown as well.

The Crown isn't a crossover, but it's crossover-like. Its height and fastback roofline do a fair job hiding the fact that it's a sedan. The Crown also makes more power than the Venza and performs better in EPA testing. The tradeoff is that it costs more and has a smaller cargo area. It's also rather odd looking.

Toyota

Price Starts Lower for the Venza

Regardless of which Toyota you choose, you'll receive an all-wheel-drive vehicle with an electrified engine. Every Venza comes with a hybrid powertrain that pairs Toyota's 2.5-liter four-cylinder with three electric motors making 219 horsepower. The cheapest model available is the LE, which has a starting price of $36,000.

Toyota

You'll find a similar powertrain in two of the three Crown trim levels, only this version makes 236 horsepower. The base sedan demands $41,000, which is a sizable increase over the Venza. If you desire the Platinum trim's 340-hp hybrid — built with a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder — expect to pay about $54,000.

Toyota

The Crown's Interior Features a Few More Extras

Wondering what the Crown's $5,000 upcharge gets you? In terms of cabin tech, the dual 12.3-inch screens in the sedan are nicer looking than the base Venza's 7.0-inch driver display and 8.0-inch infotainment touchscreen, and many people will prefer the Crown's leatherette-trimmed, heated front seats to the crossover's cloth, unheated ones.

Otherwise, the models' standard equipment lists aren't so different. Both receive Toyota's comprehensive safety suite, providing adaptive cruise control, automatic high-beams, forward-collision mitigation, and lane-departure warning with steering assist. They also boast blind-spot monitoring, wireless device charging and smartphone mirroring tech, dual-zone automatic climate control, and proximity-key entry with push-button start.

Toyota

Higher up in the Crown lineup are leather seats, with heating for the second row, neither of which you'll find in the Venza. But then the crossover's top trim offers a head-up display and a digital rearview mirror, which are unavailable in any Crown. Plus, Venza shoppers can get the dual 12.3-inch screens by selecting the top trim, and the model's 29-cubic-feet cargo area is nearly twice as large as the Crown's trunk.

Toyota

Base Crown and Venza Models Nearly Matched in Fuel Economy

The base hybrid Crown with the 2.5-liter gets 42/41/41 mpg city/highway/combined. Selecting the top-level Crown Platinum and its more powerful powertrain drops fuel economy significantly, to 29/32/30 mpg.

Toyota

The Venza, meanwhile, returns 40/37/39 mpg.

All vehicle pricing includes MSRP plus destination charges (set at the time of publication) and will be rounded to the nearest thousand.

Beth Nichols

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Beth Nichols stumbled into automotive journalism and found her footing, jumping between a few car magazines before going freelance. Her head, once full of useless facts about literature and art history, now holds useless facts about vehicles. She edits, checks, and occasionally creates content for Capital One, and though she understands it’s customary to write a bio in the third person, I don’t like it.