2024 Toyota Grand Highlander: The Ultimate Family SUV Touches Down in New York

As fate would have it, you can throw a dart in the air nowadays in the U.S. and hit a decent midsize SUV, either driving by or sitting quietly on some dealership lot. By the way, don’t do that. Don’t go throwing darts in the air. Nowadays we use computers and the power of Internet browsing to find what we’re looking for, so if you’re in the market for a super practical yet reasonably priced family SUV, well, check this list out.

First, we have the Toyota Highlander – not necessarily because it’s best-in-class, but because it’s the main protagonist of our story. Then we have the alternatives, models such as the Chevy Traverse, Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot, VW Atlas, Kia Telluride, Mazda CX-9, Hyundai Palisade, plus a few other fringe competitors like the Grand Cherokee or the Durango.

The 2023 Toyota Highlander was already a standout vehicle among all those other names, and judging by its sales numbers, it might arguably be the most popular (second best-selling in 2022, best-selling in 2021).

Now we have the all-new Grand Highlander to contend with, which arrived at this year’s New York Auto Show for its second official public appearance following its debut in Chicago earlier this year.

What’s new?

It features the exact same GA-K platform as the regular Highlander, but with different exterior and interior styling, more room inside for all second and third-row passengers and the availability of a high-performance hybrid powertrain, sourced from the 2023 Crown.

The latter is a 2.5L hybrid unit good for 362 horsepower (367 PS) and a manufacturer-estimated 34 combined MPG (6.9 L/100km). This powertrain also offers a towing capacity of 5,000 lb (2,268 kg), which is enough for you to take a reasonably-sized boat along for a drive via trailer. Without the boat, you can hit 60 mph (97 kph) off the line in 6.3 seconds, which is not bad. This so-called Hybrid Max unit makes the Grand Highlander Toyota’s most powerful midsize SUV ever.

Of course, what really matters here is the extra room, and Toyota made sure to point out all the differences between the regular Highlander and this new Grand variant. Starting with the wheelbase, it has an extra 6.5 inches (165 mm), helping to increase the distance between the hip points of second and third-row occupants – by roughly 3.74 inches (95 mm).

Meanwhile, you also get increased third-row headroom and, thanks to the lower floor, even adults can now make for comfortable third-row passengers.

From a practical standpoint, you can easily argue in favor of the Grand Highlander as being the ultimate family SUV. It’s big enough, safe enough and sufficiently tech-savvy. So, if you fancy yourself a potential customer, know that will hit dealerships this summer, from a little over $40,000.

But wait, there’s more

Did you know that Toyota is offering 500 lucky Grand Highlander customers a free Nintendo Switch? It’s the OLED Model system, featuring a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe video game. To mark this collaboration, Toyota customized a 2024 Grand Highlander with a Nintendo Switch wrap and displayed it at the Chicago Auto Show, back in February.

Well, that very same car is also present in New York right now, packing a rear infotainment display that makes the BMW i7’s 31” Theater screen look tiny by comparison.

Thankfully this one-off concept will never see the light of day – otherwise, you’d probably never be able to get your kids to leave the car again.