2024 Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid: Bigger new SUV stuck in middle ground

2024 Toyota Grand Highlander 4WD Platinum HV: Longer, taller, wider, faster. Better?

Price: $59,878 as tested. Floor mats added $358.

Conventional wisdom: Motor Trend liked that it had a “decent third row, good outward visibility,” and “feels quick,” but not the “poor brake tuning, high base price, the Platinum’s wood-like trim.”

Marketer’s pitch: “Maximize everyone’s adventure.”

Reality: Not quite big enough, fast, not bad.

What’s new: Unveiled for the 2024 model year, the Grand Highlander offers more stretching room than the plain, old Highlander, which is still available.

The bigger version aims to do more off-road-esque stuff, with real four-wheel drive getting you through woods, flooding, earthquake, eclipse, and perhaps even pestilence and TikTok challenges. But not every passenger, or even buyer, will get the same experience.

Competition: Kia Telluride, Honda Pilot, Hyundai Palisade, Mazda CX-90, Volkswagen Atlas.

Up to speed: The Hybrid Max version is what is name implies — a bit of savings, a bit of performance. It creates 362 horsepower and sounds like a Corvette when you accelerate, but it’s simply a 2.5-liter four-cylinder with hybrid system providing the power and probably a computer chip providing the sound effects.

And it’s closing in on Corvette numbers, at least for a hybrid SUV, hurrying to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds, according to Toyota.

The Grand Highlander also comes in a more efficient hybrid version and a regular gasoline engine model. Honestly, I’d like to try the more straightforward hybrid.

Fuel economy: The Grand Highlander was a little stingy with fuel consumption information. I could never figure out the dashboard gauges to get what I wanted there.

But there in the infotainment screen, one could read the bad news: 23 mpg, and that included the Before Times, when Mr. Driver’s Seat wasn’t putting it to the acceleration test at every stoplight. That’s a sad number.

It was far less than the Sienna AWD hybrid I tested for 2022, which averaged 33 mpg.

Shifty: If it’s a Toyota hybrid, it has the Prius shift lever. It functions nicely with no confusion.

It’s coupled to a 6-speed automatic transmission, which handled the work without intrusion.

On the road: The Grand Highlander handles all right. It’s a big Toyota so call it a win if it’s not ungainly, and it definitely is not. I found it challenging to find the outside corners and the right side of the vehicle while driving.

The Grand Highlander Hybrid Max also features plenty of off-road settings, something you won’t find in many similar SUVs and certainly not a Sienna.

Driver’s Seat: The Grand Highlander is definitely comfortable to ride in. The seat doesn’t leave any backaches or strains, and it’s roomy as well.

The vehicle drive mode controls feature a dial and buttons and should eventually become second nature, but they are in an attention-stealing location that’s awkward to reach.

Friends and stuff: The handsome dashboard features a large well in front of the passenger for devices and other important stuff, a nice touch.

The console is huge and has a nice tray but is made less useful because the vehicle controls reside there.

Order the power folding seats because the manual versions require a stroll from rear door to rear door to tailgate to fold all three rows down. In theory you could reach over the middle row, but the lever is waaaaaay down the side of the seat. Normally you might have family members to help as well.

The rear doors are nice and big and help make the rear row accessible, but they also mean parking lot dings and garage wall dings. Ding, ding, ding.

The third-row seats are straight, hard, and fairly uncomfortable, with tight quarters all around. Toyota touts “three adult-size rows,” but the space falls far short of a Jeep Grand Cherokee L or Chevrolet Tahoe. Or even a Sienna.

Cargo space is 20.6 cubic feet behind the third row, 57.9 behind the second, and 97.5 with everything folded. That’s not much less than a Sienna’s 101 cubes now, thanks to that minivan’s second row that no longer removes or folds down completely. (It had been 150 or so.) Way to cut the usefulness of the Sienna, Toyota.

Play some tunes: The 11-speaker JBL stereo system is straight out of the Sturgis Family Sienna — not for controls, which have updated nicely since 2011, but for sound quality, which has not. Too much treble distorts some of my favorite tunes, which require a combination of some bass and a lot of midrange. Without a better option, this would make Highlander a no.

Controls are easy to operate — just a volume dial and then everything else in the 12.3-inch touchscreen.

Keeping warm and cool: Toggles control blower speed and location and would do well to control the temperature as well. Alas, big dials take care of that, and they work. Various other functions are controlled by buttons.

Where it’s built: Princeton, Ind.

How it’s built: Consumer Reports gives the Grand Highlander its top rating, 5 out of 5.

In the end: Though I’ve been a little harsh on it, the Grand Highlander does aim to combine space and fuel economy. I’d be interested to see how much closer the regular hybrid gets it.

Still, the Telluride and Palisade are nice to drive and have better sound systems. But if you want real third rows, you’ll have to look at the Tahoe or Grand Cherokee L — or Sienna.