Rear-Seat Reminder Highlights 2025 Toyota Sienna Minivan Refresh

• The 2025 Sienna comes with in-cabin millimeter wave radar to check for movement from the second or third row—intended to prevent parents from leaving kids in hot cars.

• If the system senses movement after the ignition is turned off, and the driver’s door has been opened, closed, and locked, it flashes the hazard lights and sounds the door lock chime.

• Production for the 2025 Sienna began two weeks ago at Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Indiana, with an 84,000-vehicle production run planned.

The refreshed 2025 Toyota Sienna hybrid minivan brings a new and rather nifty available vacuum cleaner and fridge box option at the back of the center console—it’s standard on Platinum and available on Limited.

There’s a new gray metallic color for five grades for the ’25 Sienna, and new wheels (for Woodland and Platinum). Interior fit and finish was upgraded on all models, and the digital gauge cluster is now available in four trims.

But the really big Sienna news for 2025, at least from a safety viewpoint, is the advanced rear-seat reminder, which marketing planner Mallory Bramel said uses in-cabin millimeter wave radar to check for movement from the second or third row—intended to prevent parents from leaving kids in hot cars.

As Autoweek reported in August, a federal ruling requiring some form of rear-seat protection is pending at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but the feds are really taking their time.

Asked then if it had this form of active safety pending, Toyota was cagey about where and when it would debut. Now we know. No one would confirm the system is headed to other models, but it seems very likely.

At a media event in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bramel and her colleagues demonstrated the system, which is sensitive enough to detect a baby’s breath. “The system checks for motion in the second and third rows after the doors are closed and locked,” she said.

If it senses movement after the ignition is turned off, and the driver’s door has been opened, closed, and locked, it flashes the hazard lights and sounds the door lock chime.

Ninety seconds later, if movement in the Sienna is still detected and the driver hasn’t responded, the horn starts beeping.

If the driver has registered for it, the vehicle sends a push notification via the Toyota app in addition to a text message to the driver’s mobile phone.

An automated telephone call comes two minutes later. If the car was left unlocked, the process does not start, and obviously it ends if the doors are subsequently opened after being locked.

The radar-enabled rear-seat reminder is standard on all editions of the minivan. The safer Sienna, which starts at $39,185, is powered by a hybrid drivetrain that includes a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and an electric motor that together produce 245 net horsepower.

This minivan is rated at 35 mpg combined, slightly improving on the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid when its gas engine is running. That’s the greenest minivan you’re going to get, at least until the electric VW ID. Buzz arrives soon.

The advanced rear-seat reminder in the Sienna is the start of something important.

Only the Genesis GV70 has something comparable on the US market right now, though 215 new models have less-complex rear-seat reminders. Eleven hundred American kids have died in hot cars since 1990.

Production for the 2025 Sienna began two weeks ago at Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Indiana, with an 84,000-vehicle production run planned. Markets for the Sienna include the US, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Does this new occupant sensing system make the 2025 Toyota Sienna more attractive to you as a vehicle shopper? Please comment below.