Compare the2025 Toyota CrownVS 2024 Lexus ES

In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Crown are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The ES doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.

The Crown has standard Whiplash Injury Lessening Seats, which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the Whiplash Injury Lessening Seats system allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. The ES doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.

To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the Crown. But it costs extra on the ES.

Both the Crown and the ES have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.

Side impacts caused 23% of all road fatalities in 2018, down from 29% in 2003, when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety introduced its side barrier test. In order to continue improving vehicle safety, the IIHS has started using a more severe side impact test: 37 MPH (up from 31 MPH), with a 4180-pound barrier (up from 3300 pounds). The results of this newly developed test demonstrates that the Toyota Crown is safer than the ES:

The Toyota Crown achieved a “Top Safety Pick” rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for the 2024 model year. This recognition was based on its impressive performance in the small overlap frontal crash test, updated side impact crash test, headlight evaluations, and pedestrian crash prevention testing. The ES last would have qualified as a “Top Safety Pick” in 2023.

Toyota pays for scheduled maintenance on the Crown for 1 year and 15000 miles longer than Lexus pays for maintenance for the ES (2/25000 vs. 1/10,000).

There are over 5 times as many Toyota dealers as there are Lexus dealers, which makes it much easier should you ever need service under the Crown’s warranty.

The battery on the Crown is in the trunk, which protects it from hot underhood temperatures that can degrade battery life. By keeping the Crown’s battery 20 to 30 degrees cooler, its life is increased by years. The ES’ battery is in the hot engine compartment.

The Crown has more powerful engines than the ES:

As tested in Motor Trend the Crown Platinum 2.4 turbo 4-cylinder hybrid is faster than the ES 300h 2.5 DOHC 4-cylinder hybrid:

On the EPA test cycle the Crown gets better mileage than the ES:

Regardless of its engine, the Crown’s engine automatically turns off when the vehicle is stopped, saving fuel and reducing pollution. Lexus only offers an automatic engine start/stop system on the ES Hybrid.

The Crown has 1.3 gallons more fuel capacity than the ES Hybrid’s standard fuel tank (14.5 vs. 13.2 gallons), for longer range between fill-ups.

For better stopping power the Crown’s brake rotors are larger than those on the ES:

The Crown stops much shorter than the ES:

For better traction, the Crown has larger tires than the ES (225/55R19 vs. 215/55R17).

For better ride, handling and brake cooling the Crown has standard 19-inch wheels. Smaller 17-inch wheels are standard on the ES. The Crown’s optional 21-inch wheels are larger than the 19-inch wheels on the ES F Sport.

The Crown Platinum handles at .80 G’s, while the ES 300h pulls only .78 G’s of cornering force in a Motor Trend skidpad test.

The Crown Platinum executes Motor Trend’s “Figure Eight” maneuver quicker than the ES 300h (27.5 seconds @ .61 average G’s vs. 28.4 seconds @ .6 average G’s).

For better maneuverability, the Crown Platinum’s turning circle is 2.6 feet tighter than the ES’ (35.4 feet vs. 38 feet).

The Crown has .7 inches more front headroom, .2 inches more front hip room, 1.2 inches more front shoulder room and .8 inches more rear shoulder room than the ES.

The Crown has a much larger trunk than the ES (15.2 vs. 13.9 cubic feet).

The Crown’s standard rear seats fold to accommodate long and bulky cargo. The ES doesn’t offer folding rear seats, only a ski pass-through.

The Crown’s standard speed-sensitive wipers speed up when the vehicle does, so that the driver doesn’t have to continually adjust the speed of the wipers. The ES’ standard manually variable intermittent wipers have to be constantly adjusted.

Consumer Reports rated the Crown’s headlight performance “Good,” a higher rating than the ES’ headlights, which were rated “Fair.”

The Crown has standard heated front seats. Heated front seats cost extra on the ES. The Crown also has standard heated rear seats to keep those passengers extremely comfortable in the winter. Heated rear seats aren’t available in the ES.

The Crown has a standard heated steering wheel to take the chill out of steering on extremely cold winter days before the car heater warms up. A heated steering wheel costs extra on the ES.

To quickly and conveniently keep personal devices charged without cables tangling and wearing out, the Toyota Crown has a standard wireless phone charging system (Qi) in the center console. Wireless charging costs extra on the ES.

The Crown Platinum’s Advanced Park can parallel park or back into a parking spot by itself, starting, stopping and changing direction automatically. The ES doesn’t offer an automated parking system.

Consumer Reports® recommends both the Toyota Crown and the Lexus ES, based on reliability, safety and performance.