Toyota Sienna for Rideshare: Eight Seats, XL Only, No Uber X

Energy, maintenance and depreciation only, at $4.08/gal. Insurance, registration and any car payment sit on top — add yours in the cost per mile calculator.

Where the Sienna wins

The Sienna is one of two minivans in this dataset, and the field where it stands apart from every sedan, crossover, or SUV reviewed on this site is seating: eight seats, against five for every hybrid sedan and crossover in this dataset, and against seven for the Odyssey, the other minivan in this dataset. Cargo space of 33.5 cubic feet is also the second-largest of any vehicle reviewed here, behind only the RAV4 Hybrid’s 37.6, and rear legroom of 39.9 inches beats every hybrid sedan except the Accord Hybrid’s 40.4.

Uber’s own listing rates this car for Uber XL, the tier built around exactly this seating capacity — a fare category no sedan, crossover, or standard SUV in this dataset can reach at all. That is the case for this car in one sentence: eight seats and an XL-eligible body are the entire argument, and they are a real one for a driver who specifically works group rides or large-party airport runs.

Where it does not

Here is the fact worth stating plainly rather than glossing as a footnote in a spec table: this car is not rated for Uber X. Uber’s own eligibility listing for XL and XXL vehicles puts the Sienna in the XL tier only — a driver cannot take standard Uber X requests in this car at all, on this platform, under this vehicle’s own listing. That is a structural tradeoff, not a temporary gap: a Sienna earns exclusively within the XL queue, and a driver who wants the flexibility to also pick up ordinary X requests during slow periods does not get that option in this vehicle.

The running cost matches the size. On the 2021-2024 generation this listing covers, the Sienna is rated 36 mpg combined — a genuinely good number for a minivan, and it comes to about 11.3 cents a mile in fuel at $4.085 a gallon. But maintenance runs 3.7 cents a mile and depreciation runs 23.4 cents a mile, the highest depreciation rate of any vehicle reviewed on this site by a wide margin. The three together come to roughly 38.4 cents a mile — about 30 percent more than the RAV4 Hybrid’s 29.5 and almost double the Prius’s 20.4. Depreciation alone is 60.9 percent of that total. Annual total running cost at a full-time driver’s 30,000-mile year comes to about $11,534 — the second-highest of any vehicle in this dataset — and the current 76-cent IRS mileage rate clears that only 1.98 times over — the second-thinnest margin in this dataset, behind only the Odyssey’s 1.77. The used-price range, $27,590 to $38,120, is also the highest floor of any vehicle in this dataset, a $10,530 spread that puts this car out of reach for a driver working from the budget end of the market.

Passenger space and luggage

Eight seats and 39.9 inches of rear legroom mean this car can genuinely carry a full group of passengers in comfort, not just legally — a real point of difference from every sedan in this dataset, where five seats routinely mean four practical passengers. Cargo space of 33.5 cubic feet holds luggage for a full group without the folding-seat compromises smaller vehicles require. The combination of eight seats and 33.5 cubic feet of cargo is the strongest passenger-and-luggage package in this dataset, matched only by the Odyssey among the vehicles reviewed on this site.

Maintenance and the battery question

The published maintenance estimate is $554 a year, sourced to RepairPal and the highest of any vehicle reviewed on this site, built around a typical private driver’s mileage. Scaled to this site’s 3.7-cent-a-mile rate instead, a full-time 30,000-mile year comes to about $1,110 — roughly double the published figure, the same scaling pattern every vehicle in this dataset shows once mileage moves from a typical owner’s use to a full-time driver’s.

The hybrid battery question has the same honest answer here as it does for every hybrid in this dataset: there is no separate line item for it. The 3.7-cent rate is RepairPal’s average across whatever mix of ordinary and battery-related service its sample includes for this specific model. It is an average, not a warranty — a driver whose pack needs replacement outside that average pays well above 3.7 cents a mile in the year it happens, and no average predicts in advance which driver that will be.

Does it pay for itself?

At about $11,534 a year in fuel, maintenance, and depreciation for 30,000 miles, whether the Sienna pays for itself depends on fares and hours behind the wheel — and specifically, given this car’s XL-only eligibility, on how much of that driving time is spent inside the XL queue rather than idle waiting for group-ride requests, a split this dataset does not track. What the figures above supply is the running-cost half of the question: 38.4 cents a mile, or the combined mpg, maintenance rate, and depreciation rate straight from the spec table, is what a payback-period calculation needs before a purchase price in the $27,590-$38,120 range turns into a concrete number of weeks. Given how much higher this car’s running cost sits than any sedan or crossover in this dataset, that payback period depends heavily on XL fares actually running well above X fares — a premium this dataset does not measure directly.

The IRS mileage rate moved from 72.5 cents in the first half of 2026 to 76 cents on July 1 — a 3.5-cent step that changes nothing about what this car costs to run but adds about $1,050 to what a full 30,000-mile year is worth on a tax return compared with the earlier rate, a smaller relative help here than on any lower-cost car in this dataset.

Verdict

The Sienna is the right pick for a driver committed to working Uber XL specifically — group rides, larger parties, and the fares that come with them — and willing to carry the highest price floor and second-highest running cost in this dataset to do it. It is the wrong pick for a driver who wants the flexibility to also take Uber X requests, since this car cannot take them at all, or for a driver optimizing for running cost first, since 38.4 cents a mile runs about 70 percent above what the cheapest hybrid sedans in this dataset cost. A direct comparison against the Odyssey, the other XL-eligible minivan in this dataset, is the natural next read for a driver deciding between the two on running cost and passenger capacity.