Summary
- The 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander offers ample seating and cargo space, with a maximum of eight people and impressive legroom in the third row.
- The Grand Highlander boasts a range of powertrain options, including a high-performance hybrid variant, offering both power and efficiency.
- The Toyota Grand Highlander stands out with its larger dimensions, more mature design, and advanced safety features, making it a top contender in the midsize SUV segment.
Buying an SUV today is likely to be one of the most challenging car purchase decisions you can make, as they are the most popular vehicle class on the road. Due to this fact, almost every vehicle manufacturer produces an array of models. They come in various shapes and sizes, with their stand-out key features amounting to an extensive selection to choose from.
In particular, the midsize SUV market has grown into a hotly contested space over the past 10 to 15 years, with almost every mainstream automaker offering a broad spectrum of options. The two and three-row midsized SUV market is so flooded with options that it can be overwhelming to narrow down the choices and identify your top pick. A staunch contingent of models provides high performance, practicality, creature comforts, advanced connectivity, and safety features, making it a tall order to stand out from the crowd.
In this article, we'll help you narrow down this choice by taking a look at why the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander is the best midsize SUV under $60,000, alluding to its specs and price estimates, and detailing some of the differences between the Grand Highlander vs. Highlander.
Updated August 16, 2023: The 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander is shaping up to be such a great SUV that it deserves as much recognition as possible. So, instead of letting this article get buried in the multitudes of other dead articles online, we have decided to refresh and update it with more data to keep you informed with the most up-to-date information possible.
10 The Grand Highlander Will Have Adults Calling Dibs On Third Row Seats
In its official press release, Toyota stated that the highly anticipated 2024 Grand Highlander will seat a maximum of eight people. Moreover, Toyota has claimed that the Grand Highlander will confidently accommodate three full-size adults in its third row. The third row offers an impressive 33.5 inches of legroom, about six inches more than the regular Highlander and sufficient for an adult to sit comfortably.
Even with all three rows up, there is 20.6 cubic feet of cargo space and a massive 97.5 cubic feet with the second and third rows down. This equates to a sizable 14 cubic feet increase in cargo capacity compared to the standard Highlander, which has 84 cubic feet of cargo space with all seat rows folded down. With its spacious third row and nearly 21 cubic feet of cargo capacity in the rear, it can fit the whole family and pack in practically everything you need—with room to spare.
9 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander Promises To Be A Performance-Driven SUV
Toyota offers both high performance and all-around efficiency in the first-ever Grand Highlander. With three powertrains offered with both front-wheel drive (FWD) and all-wheel drive (AWD) – the well-balanced 2.4-liter turbo gas engine (FWD/AWD), the efficiency-leading 2.5-liter Hybrid (FWD/AWD) and the ultimate performance-seeking, 362-horsepower Hybrid MAX with 400-pound feet of torque with standard AWD – there is something for everyone. As for gas mileage, you can expect the Hybrid to be the most frugal of the bunch, but given the larger dimensions of the Grand Highlander, combined mpg will be slightly lesser than the 36 combined mpg the standard model offers.
Performance
| Engine | Horsepower | Torque |
| Turbocharged 2.4-liter | 265 horsepower | 310 pound-feet |
| 2.5-liter with two electric motors | 243 horsepower | 175 pound-feet |
| Turbocharged 2.4-liter with two electric motors | 362 horsepower | 400 pound-feet |
The Hybrid MAX powertrain makes the Grand Highlander the most powerful midsize SUV Toyota has ever built. Drivers will also experience impressive performance off the line – thanks to a 0-60 mph time of 6.3 seconds.
8 The Grand Highlander Is A New Addition To The Toyota Lineup
Although it features the Highlander name, the Grand Highlander will be an all-new addition to the Toyota lineup when it goes on sale sometime in late 2023. Toyota expects the Grand Highlander to fill the space between the full-size Sequoia and the regular Highlander. Dimensionally, it does just that. At 201.4 inches front to back, the Grand Highlander is 6.5 inches longer than the Highlander and roughly 7.0 inches shorter than the Sequoia. The 2024 Grand Highlander also stands 2.0 inches taller and spans 2.3 inches wider than the regular Highlander.
With about 116 inches between its axles, the bigger Grand Highlander's wheelbase is approximately 4 inches longer than the standard Highlander. The Grand Highlander's increased exterior proportions translate to a roomier interior, particularly in the cargo area and third row. As previously discussed, when compared with the regular Highlander, the Grand Highlander's third row gains 5.5 inches of legroom (33.5 versus 28 inches). There's also an extra inch of headroom and over 2.0 inches of additional shoulder space.
7 The Toyota Grand Highlander Punches Above Its Weight
Is the Grand Highlander bigger than the Toyota Sequoia? You may be wondering. The short answer is no. The Toyota Sequoia boasts a lot of space in an SUV that makes its presence felt. It has an overall width of just under 80 inches. Its height is slightly over 74 inches, with a length of just over 208 inches. Comparatively, the Grand Highlander measures 201.4 inches long, 70.1 inches tall, and 78.3 inches wide.
In its interior, the all-new Toyota Sequoia is spacious, while the Sequoia is undoubtedly a larger SUV than the midsize Grand Highlander. However, the Grand Highlander makes better use of its space. To illustrate, the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander will have 153 cubic feet of total interior space, 21 cubic feet of cargo space with all seats up, and as the brand claims, an adult-suitable third row. On the other hand, the 2023 Toyota Sequoia offers only 86.9 cubic feet of total interior space and a pretty cramped third row that doesn't even fold flat completely.
6 The Mature Look Of The 2024 Grand Highlander
When it comes to the Grand Highlander vs. Highlander, the regular Highlander has a rather distinctive look with prominent side surfacing. At the same time, the Grand Highlander appears more mature. From a design perspective, the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander doesn't look like a derivative of the standard Highlander. It diverges away from the curvaceous lines of its smaller sibling, going instead for a boxier and more angular route similar to the Sequoia. The trapezoidal grille is different and looks more Sequoia-ish. On the side, we see lots of Toyota Sequoia once again.
While the back doors look like the standard Highlander, the rear window looks different and more angular. A hint of chrome accents the bottom of the window frames, and the glass house is pretty generous. Minimal lines are also the day's flavor for the Grand Highlander, emphasizing its boxy and rugged looks. Depending on the variant, wheel sizes range from 18 to 20 inches.
5 Creature Comforts With Added Versatility In The Grand Highlander
A family vehicle like the three-row Grand Highlander is all about the interior. The reason most people buy a large crossover is so that they can haul their family comfortably and safely. As soon as you get into the Grand Highlander, you'll be greeted with a familiar Toyota layout where everything is where you expect it to be, and everything is relatively simple to use. The base XLE comes with:
- 7.0-inch semi-digital instrument cluster
- synthetic leather upholstery
- power-adjustable front seats
- heated front seats
- 12.3-inch Toyota Audio Multimedia infotainment with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
- second-row sunshades
- powered tailgate
Moving up to the Limited variant adds genuine leather upholstery, a 12.3-inch fully-digital gauge cluster, an 11-speaker JBL sound system, heated and ventilated front seats, heated second-row seats, heated steering, ambient lighting, foot sensor for the powered tailgate, power outlet (100 watts for 2.4-liter or 1,500 watts for the hybrid models). Lastly, the top trim Platinum grade adds a panoramic sunroof, Multi-Terrain Select for AWD gas and Hybrid Max, head-up display, puddle exterior lamps, 360-degree camera, and a digital rearview mirror.
4 The Toyota Grand Highlander Has Advanced Safety Features
Every Grand Highlander is equipped with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, which has a host of standard driver-assistance technology, including adaptive cruise control, automated emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, and even blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. Proactive Driving Assist is a new feature of Toyota Safety Sense. When system operating conditions are met, using the vehicle's camera and radar, this system provides gentle braking into curves or gentle braking and/or steering to help support driving tasks such as distance control between a preceding vehicle, pedestrian, or bicyclist.
This feature, however, does not replace the Pre-Collision System with Pedestrian Detection. Other safety features of the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander include a five-door smart key, allowing the driver to lock and unlock the doors and start the engine without taking the key out of their pocket or purse. The auto-dimming mirror reduces glare from headlights behind the vehicle, while the power liftgate makes loading and unloading cargo a breeze.
3 The Grand Highlander May Just Stifle The Competition
The Toyota Grand Highlander is not the first in its segment, not by a long shot, so it has to, at the very least, keep up with the competition. There are several competitors in the midsize three-row SUV segment. Competitors include models like the Ford Explorer, Chevrolet Traverse, Jeep Grand Cherokee L, Honda Pilot, Nissan Pathfinder, Subaru Ascent, and the upcoming Mazda CX-90. While Toyota does admit that the Grand Highlander may eat into Sequoia's sales, they are okay with it.
Toyota should be very confident of the success of the Grand Highlander, knowing that over the past two years, Toyota has sold nearly 487,000 Highlanders, making the three-row mid-sizer its second-best-selling SUV in the U.S. behind only the compact RAV4. Further, given that Toyota's hybrid models have stolen sales away from non-hybrid competition in the last few years, it will be interesting to see what the debut of the Toyota Grand Highlander does to the likes of the popular Palisade, Telluride, and Pilot, none of which currently offer a hybrid option.
2 Consumer Reports Has Good Things To Say About the 2024 Grand Highlander
Since the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander is a brand-new SUV for the year, there is no way for any car review company to make a completely accurate write-up about its reliability. However, since the Highlander is based on other components and technology that Toyota is currently using, Consumer Reports has dug into the data it already has and has estimated how reliable the Grand Highlander will be for 2024 and how likely consumers will be to like it.
For reliability, Consumer Reports has estimated the Toyota to be a four out of five-star rating, and the same goes for consumer satisfaction. For a brand new SUV, that is a good starting point, an excellent starting point, considering that vehicles that have been around for 33 years, like the Ford Explorer, received a one out of five in reliability and a two out of five in owner satisfaction.
1 All That's Left To Decide Is Which Toyota Grand Highlander To Buy
As previously mentioned, the 2024 Grand Highlander will be available in three different trim levels - XLE, Limited, and Platinum. Those hoping for a cheap L or LE trim won't find those options on the list. The prices are expected to start at around $45,000.
- Toyota Grand Highlander XLE: $43,070 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Limited: $47,860 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Platinum: $54,545 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid XLE: $44,670 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid Limited: $51,060 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid MAX Limited: $54,040 starting MSRP
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid MAX Platinum: $58,125 starting MSRP