Video: 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander: Hybrid Hero?

(bright music) All new for the 2024 model year, the Grand Highlander is the latest three-row SUV in Toyota's sprawling SUV lineup, sitting above the regular standard Highlander and below the Sequoia. Also new with the Grand Highlander is a raft of interesting powertrain choices. Our limited tester here has a traditional hybrid drivetrain making it the only hybrid among the bunch of SUVs tested here and giving it a significant leg up when it comes to efficiency. Speaking of efficiency, this is the hybrid and we have to get into it because it really blew us away. So, you know, when I think about family life, it is a lot of running errands for the kids and with the kids, whether that's to school, to soccer, to, you know, the grocery store, what you name it, a hybrid makes that a lot easier on the old wallet. And in our own fuel economy test run the Grand Highlander blew everybody else out of the water. No big surprise there. It returned 35.1 miles per gallon in our test, which was more than 10 miles per gallon, you know, compared to the Pilot and the Atlas, which tied for a second place. So tell me a little bit about what you liked here. Yeah, no, this was, I think for me, the biggest powertrain surprise of this whole test compared to the traditional kind of under-stressed, naturally aspirated V6s found in, I would say the majority of the competition field here and next to the turbocharged four-cylinders and the Atlas and the Ascent. I had low hopes for, or low expectations, for this naturally aspirated hybridized four-cylinder, especially when you take into account Toyota's other naturally aspirated four-cylinder offerings. They're not bad, they're just, they can be kind of course unrefined and sometimes a little bit underpowered in bigger SUVs like this. But blown away how they've isolated this quite well. They've made it feel just as powerful, in my opinion, as the turbocharge offerings. And yeah, like you said, it was unbelievably efficient for what it is. Plenty of power. I can imagine it loaded up with kids and all sorts of the hockey sticks and soccer balls and all the family runs the airport. It was great. I mean, it really blew me away. Now there's also one more benefit to the hybrid side of things, right? And that is EV mode. I know it was great in parking lots, but did anything strike you about that? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I like to think back when I was in high school and I wish I had an EV mode in my parents' car when I would sneak home so they wouldn't know I'm home late. But I will say, it felt like it was making a tangible difference. So I found that it wasn't just efficient in fuel, which it is, but the usage of space and storage on the inside, very impressive. I remember the first thing I noticed when I got into this for my first drive, like, we're in the desert and I have this bright orange metal liter Hydroflask and a double walled, all that, so it's kind of big, and usually I have to throw it in the cavernous storage bin on the other SUVs under the armrest. It rattles around, it rolls, it makes a ruckus or put it in the doors, which it barely fits there. This one has this storage well, right next to the shifter that it's almost as if it was designed for this. It just slots right in, no rattling keeps it in place. Awesome. Love that. Yeah, I just generally was super impressed usage for the small stuff, but for the bigger stuff, it still also swallows pretty much everything because in our testing we found that this is best in test for storage behind the third row. And we know that with families there is a lot of crap, right? I mean, yeah, cribs or whatever. You've got all the hockey equipment, whatever sport you're playing, it's really important that that cargo area can handle all that because you wanna have maximum space up front. One of the things that I really liked is the front passenger isn't forgotten. There's a little storage shelf there, which normally I sort of don't pay a lot of attention to, but I thought this was really well done and it was deep enough to hold my phone and there was a charging port, so one less cable sort of, you know, snaking out of the center console area. Another thing I also enjoyed was the flexibility in the second row between the captain's chairs. There's the center console, which, you know, can hold cups, whatever stuff kids have. This is removable, right? So that's great. As you have this car, you're not just gonna have it for a few years, you're gonna have it for maybe 10 years or more. So what you need and the way you use this car is gonna change. And Toyota really dialed in the flexibility. So of course this is coming in third, so not everything is perfect with the Grand Highlander. For me, I had some issues with the seats. In the second row, I found the captain's chairs to be incredibly heavy to move, you know, you're trying to shift the seat forward to create a walkway to the third row seat. I had to put a lot of muscle into that. Now imagine, you know, a 10-year-old trying to do this while, you know, you as the parent are trying to load groceries into the back or something, right? So thinking about that, not only from my own perspective, but from a child's, and then the third row, you know, the buckles in the back, they're on floppy. They're floppy we call them, which sounds silly, but if you've got a kid in car seat, in a booster seat back there and they're trying to buckle up independently, it's really hard for them to do. And I can guarantee you that no parent really wants to go back there to help any child in the third row buckle up. So for that reason, it did not score very well. And others in our car seat check. But what about you? What stood out as sort of not your fave? Yeah, I got a couple things, but I do wanna say it's also sounds like that could be a combination issue, if the parent does have to go back there, move the heavy seats, kid, that's not fun, is it? No. Well, yeah, no, I would say for me it's kind of smaller stuff, but I found the infotainment a little bare bones wasn't the biggest fan. It's newish. It's being rolled out with, you know, newer Toyota models. It was just kind of hard to find where the embedded systems are and the features are, I don't know, I just wasn't the biggest fan of that. Now, some of the trim on the inside I noticed is kind of plasticy and not the best. Yeah. Can't fault this too much because we got the Limited because of we wanted to have price parity with the other vehicles here. There is a Platinum trim above this, which would be more on par with equipment as these others. But hey, this makes sense for the price. And so it really wasn't too bad. It was just, you know, plasticy. And to be honest, in traditional Toyota sense, they put more of an emphasis on, you know, robustness and longevity and value rather than they do style. So I will say this is probably one of the more boring interiors that I've driven on this test, especially compared to some real stylistic standouts like the Telluride and Pathfinder, surprisingly on that Pathfinder. But, you know, and finally my most like lamest of nitpicks that I have is the drive mode buttons that are positioned, right? They're large, if you remember them. And they're right positioned ahead of the center console armrest. And I found myself occasionally hitting those buttons. Changing the drive mode doesn't sound like a big problem, but consider this is all about efficiency and smoothness. If you accidentally hit this into sport mode, it's going to affect how the powertrain reacts, especially the highway might downshift or, you know, I wish they could reposition that to maybe be a knob or something like in the other cars. Yeah, and a little bit further away from just that. Yep, I hear you. I hear you. And it's a little things like that that can sink a car. Yeah, exactly. The Grand Highlander is comfortable, it's spacious and it's fuel efficient, and that's a bit of a rarity for three-row SUVs. Now, the hybrid side of things, it doesn't negatively affect the driving experience either, which is fantastic. In fact, it's a bit of the best of both worlds for families on the go. (upbeat music)