LIKES
- Fuel efficient
- Powerful Hybrid Max system
- Roomy
- Premium feel
DISLIKES
- Oddball looks
- Oddball crossover lines
- Not sporty
- Middling acceleration for base powertrain
BUYING TIP
- The Crown's base XLE model comes with lots of features and excellent fuel economy.
The 2023 Toyota Crown takes on elements of crossover style to draw more customers than the Avalon it replaces, but it doesn’t drive as well.
What kind of vehicle is the 2023 Toyota Crown? What does it compare to?
Toyota has ended one premium full-size sedan, the Avalon, only to introduce another, the Crown, with crossover influences and a pair of hybrid powertrains. It competes with the likes of the Subaru Legacy, Nissan Maxima, Dodge Charger, and Volvo V90.
Is the 2023 Toyota Crown a good car?
The Crown’s crossover cues affect its design and driving character, and not all for the good. It’s less sporty than the luxury-focused Avalon and head room is compromised due to a high seating position. It’s efficient with either powertrain, has good space, and offers a strong new Hybrid Max powertrain. It earns a TCC Rating of 6.2 out of 10.
What's new for the 2023 Toyota Crown?
The 2023 Toyota Crown is new for the U.S., and redesigned for its Japanese home market where it’s been available as a premium sedan for decades.
Inside, the Crown has a slightly upscale look, but compromised front and rear head room. The front seats are comfortable, the rear seat has good leg room, and the trunk is decently sized but with a small opening.
The Crown marks the debut of two hybrid systems for Toyota, the most notable of which is the new Hybrid Max system that balances power and fuel economy in the top model. It’s comprised of a 2.4-liter turbo-4 and front and rear motors to produce 340 hp and provide all-wheel drive. It feeds the power through a 6-speed direct-shift transmission that can be shifted manually via steering wheel paddles. It gets 30 mpg combined and posts a 0-60 mph time of 5.9 seconds.
The Crown’s two other grades get the next generation Toyota Hybrid System (THS) used in the Camry and Avalon, among others. It teams a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine with front and rear motors to provide 236 hp, all-wheel drive, and 41 mpg combined.
The tall seating position gives the Crown a crossover driving character. It’s perfectly pleasant but it has a little more body lean than the average sedan. It rides smoothly but doesn’t want to attack corners.
How much does the 2023 Toyota Crown cost?
The Crown is offered in XLE, Limited, and Platinum trims. The XLE starts at $41,045 and comes standard with 8-way power front seats, cloth and synthetic suede upholstery, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen with over-the-air-update capability, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, navigation, wireless smartphone charging, and 19-inch alloy wheels. The top-line Platinum starts at $53,445.
Standard safety features on the Crown include automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cross-traffic detection, adaptive cruise control, active lane control, automatic high beams, road sign recognition, blind-spot monitors, and a rear-seat reminder system.
In Japan.
Styling
The 2023 Toyota Crown has a fastback body with crossover cues that add some awkward lines.
Is the 2023 Toyota Crown a good-looking car?
Lending a crossover look to a sedan creates some awkward lines on the Crown. It’s neither attractive nor offensive inside and out. We call that a 5 here.
Toyota adapts the sheet metal of the Crown to a seat height that is raised 4.0 inches. That results in some compromises because it sits no higher off the ground than the typical sedan. The car’s shoulder line is raised to allow the roof to be raised while still balancing the profile without creating a bubble-top look. Cladding around the wheel wells adds a crossover element, as do tires that leave a gap between them and the cladding.
Inside, the Crown is smartly laid out, but lacks the design appeal and some of the soft-touch surfaces of the Avalon it replaces. The dash has horizontal lines and a large 12.3-inch center screen with a housing that flows into the housing for the digital instrument cluster. The layout is smart. The center screen and controls are easy to reach and operate, and the center console has a vertical wireless smartphone charging pocket, two cupholders, and a good-sized console bin.
Performance
The Toyota Crown rides well but lacks any sporty appeal.
The Crown’s base engine offers only decent acceleration. A smooth ride is the car’s strength. That earns it a modest 6 here.
Is the Toyota Crown 4WD?
Both of the Crown’s hybrid systems use the engine to power the front wheels and a rear motor that provides all-wheel drive. In the base models, the system can drive the front wheels exclusively or send up to 80% of the power to the rear. The Hybrid Max system in the Limited varies its torque between a 70/30 front bias and a 20/80 rear bias.
Crown buyers have a choice: decent power with good fuel economy or good power with decent fuel economy. In its base form, the Crown augments a 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine with a pair of electric motors, one front and one rear, for a total of 236 hp. It’s a familiar system used in the Camry hybrid, and it offers decent pep, with a 0-60 mph time of around eight seconds. A continuously variable transmission can make the engine rev when the driver’s foot isn’t in the throttle and create a rubber band effect that provides better acceleration a beat after throttle inputs. It’s a small price to pay for the fuel economy.
The Hybrid Max system is downright quick. It teams a 2.4-liter turbo-4 and front and rear motors to produce 340 hp and cut the 0-60 mph time to 5.9 seconds. The power flows through a 6-speed direct-shift transmission that can be shifted manually via steering wheel paddles, so the stepped gears feel much like other automatic transmissions. It has good thrust in any rev range, which makes it easy to get a jump off the line or pass on a rural highway.
Base Crowns have Eco, Normal, Sport, and EV driving modes, the last of which allows for short periods of low-speed electric driving. Crowns with the Hybrid Max powertrain lose the EV mode, but gain Sport+, Comfort, and Custom modes. The Sport modes make the power easiest to access without feeling high strung. The power can dawdle in Eco mode.
Comfort & Quality
The 2023 Toyota Crown challenges head room and fails to live up to Avalon quality standards.
The Crown doesn’t excel for interior space or materials. It can seat five comfortably, though, and that earns it an extra point here to a 6.
The Crown’s design compromises its interior space. With its higher seating position and sloping roof line, head room front and rear is limited for anyone over 6-feet tall. There’s plenty of good here, too, as leg room is plentiful in both seating rows, the front seats are easy-chair comfortable and the rear seat has decent thigh support for longer trips.
Despite its fastback shape, the Crown is a sedan with a small trunk opening. The trunk has a decent 15.2 cubic feet of space, and that expands for longer items with a standard 60/40-split folding rear seat.
Every Crown has acoustic glass and a sound absorbing pad between the engine and cabin, and engineers worked to block sound paths around the door frames, window openings, wiring harnesses, and other areas. It all blocks out noise well and creates a serene environment.
Safety
Toyota loads up the Crown with safety equipment.
How safe is the Toyota Crown?
The Crown has no crash-test scores yet, and we won’t rate it until it does.
Toyota loads up the Crown with standard safety features, including automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cross-traffic detection, adaptive cruise control, active lane control, automatic high beams, road sign recognition, blind-spot monitors, rear cross-traffic alerts, and a rear-seat reminder system. The Platinum also has automatic parking.
Features
The 2023 Toyota Crown comes well equipped in three simple models.
Toyota equips the Crown well, and really piles on the equipment with one move up the lineup from XLE to Limited. Platinum crowns the lineup. It offers few options, and its price puts it in a segment with tough competition. We rate it a 8 here, adding points for its standard equipment, easy-to-use infotainment, and good warranty.
The XLE comes standard with fabric and synthetic suede upholstery, 8-way power-adjustable heated front seats, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, wireless smartphone charging, a 12.3-inch infotainment screen with over-the-air-update capability, navigation, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and 19-inch alloy wheels.
Which Toyota Crown should I buy?
How much is a fully loaded 2023 Toyota Crown?
The $53,445 Platinum gets the stronger Hybrid Max system, adaptive dampers, 21-inch wheels, a digital key, and a surround-view camera system.
The Crown has a good warranty of 3 years, 36,000 miles and 8 years/100,000 miles for its hybrid powertrain, and it comes with 2 years, 25,000 miles of free maintenance.
Fuel Economy
Crown buyers have a choice: fuel economy or power.
Is the 2023 Toyota Crown good on gas?
Yes and sort of yes. Lower-end models with the base Toyota Hybrid System get 42 mpg city, 41 highway, 41 mpg combined, according to Toyota. Toyota expects the majority of buyers to choose that system, which qualifies the Crown as a 6 here.
With the more-powerful Hybrid Max system in the Platinum model, the Crown is rated at a company-estimated 29/32/30 mpg, which would score a 4.
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