10 Biggest News Stories of the Week: Toyota 4Runner Gets Premium Position, Kia EV9 Powers Up
The Off-Road trim of the 2025 Toyota 4Runner is aimed at those who aspire to a rough and rugged lifestyle packed with weekends crawling rocks, fording streams and overlanding. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect a like-minded terrain traverser to pull up next to you and ask if you have any Grey Poupon — at least not when you’ve both sprung for the mid-size SUV’s Premium variant, which adds a little extravagance to your off-road adventure. We get into just what that means in Cars.com’s most popular article of the past week.
Related: 10 Biggest News Stories of the Month: Nissan Sentra Squeaks Past Toyota RAV4 Hybrid
Occupants of a Premium-outfitted 4Runner are treated to high-quality faux leather upholstery, as well as eight-way power-adjustable, heated and ventilated seats. The driver enjoys a memory seat function, heated steering wheel, leather-wrapped shift knob and upgraded auto-dimming rearview mirror with smart-home integration. Available options include a rearview camera mirror and advanced towing tech. All of that’s in addition to a (43% larger) 14-inch touchscreen and one-year subscription to Toyota’s Drive Connect, a cloud-based navigation system providing such conveniences as real-time traffic and assistance from live agents. Just note: You’ll pay a premium for the Premium, to the tune of nearly $6,000 more than a “basic” Off-Road variant.
For full details on what you get when you buy a 2025 Toyota 4Runner Off-Road Premium — including a pricing breakdown and lineup comparison — follow the link below to the No. 1 news story on this week’s countdown of most read articles.
Not far behind on the countdown is a rundown on what buyers of a Kia EV9 can power using the vehicle’s handy-dandy vehicle-to-load capability, essentially repurposing the all-electric SUV as a 2-ton device charger. Not unlike of the aforementioned 4Runner’s mix of outdoorsy inclination and coddling cabin appointments, having an EV9 at your campsite ain’t a bad idea if you want to run floodlights, an electric stove or entertainment devices — or even provide a mosquito-free, air-conditioned oasis for those who’ve had enough nature for the night. As convenient as that sounds, not a solitary Cars.com editor had yet used the V2L feature for anything in over a year of ownership of the 2024 EV9 purchased for our fleet of long-term test vehicles — so we’d prolly put it in the nice-to-have column rather than as a non-negotiable.
Decide for yourself how V2L would factor into your decision to buy a 2025 Kia EV9 by following the link below to the No. 2 news story of the week.
Beyond that, we’ve got headlines on the Mitsubishi Outlander and Outlander Plug-in Hybrid, Volkswagen Tiguan, Tesla Model S and Model X, the Genesis brand and much more — so don’t stop reading till the digits double. Here are the top 10 news stories Cars.com readers couldn’t get enough of in the past week:
1. What Makes Our 2025 Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road Premium … Well, Premium?
2. What Did We Power With Our Kia EV9’s Battery Pack?
3. Here Are the 10 Cheapest New Cars You Can Buy Right Now
4. Which Electric Cars Are Still Eligible for the $7,500 Federal Tax Credit?
5. Mitsubishi Recalls 198,000-Plus Outlander, Outlander Plug-in Hybrid SUVs Over Rearview Camera Issue
6. Here Are the 11 Cheapest Electric Vehicles You Can Buy
7. How Does the 2025 Volkswagen Tiguan Compare With Other Compact SUVs?
8. Tesla Refines Aerodynamics, Updates Tech for Model S, Model X
9. 2025 BMW M5 Touring (Wagon) Quick Spin: Practical Performance
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