Driving the 2024 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Brought Pleasant Memories Back to the Surface

The interior design made me reminiscent of being in the cockpit of a plane. I’m obsessed with flying and learning to fly a plane is on my bucket list so I like to fancy myself a pilot on the road. The Highlander hybrid’s center stack, climate and media center, and digital driver’s display feel very tech-heavy to me, but I liked it!

The leather-wrapped seats are heated and ventilated (a must for our Texas summers!) and power-adjustable. You get wireless charging, wireless Android Auto, and Apple CarPlay on a 12.3” media screen, a digital rear-view mirror, and a panoramic moonroof – all the things to make a girl feel spoiled on the road.

With everything being very accessible and user-friendly, the driver’s seat was a very pleasant and familiar place to be.

Sure there are a lot of buttons and knobs, something that can turn me off if they feel like clutter, but in the Highlander hybrid, they are well placed and the whole thing just makes sense – everything is right where you’d expect it to be. 

The Highlander also came with storage cubbies under the media screen, under the glove box, and a large center console where you and your passengers can store devices, sunglasses, and other small trinkets out of the way.

As a bonus, I appreciated the cup holders being free for our drinks.

The Platinum model I test-drove had bucket seats (or Captain’s Chairs) in the center row and only held seven passengers, but the Highlander is available with a bench seat for the middle row. And, the third row has seating for three, unlike most 3-row SUVs which only seat two in the rear.

If your kids and their friends are on the smaller side, the Highlander hybrid can be a great carpool solution. We took a little road trip as a family and had just one teen in the third row.

My son was tight on legroom, but I didn’t hear any complaints since he got the whole row to himself. He was also impressed that the seats were adjustable and he could recline them a little to relax. Especially since they were adjustable.

I like a lot of hybrid cars, but most of them are sedans or small SUVs. This seven to eight-seater hybrid can fit the whole family, has 243 horsepower, up to 36 combined MPG, and a towing capacity of up to 3,500 pounds.

The gas model of the 2024 Highlander starts at $39,270 and the hybrid version starts at $42,570 for the LE (base) model. The model we drove was a Platinum and topped out at $55,653 with the delivery fee. 

Not a bad deal at all! My family and I found the estimated fuel economy of 36 mpg combined (and a single less mile per gallon for the AWD model) to be accurate, and it made a long road trip across the state of Texas so much more relaxing.

The second-row seats are on tracks to slide back and forth so they do offer some flexibility for the 3rd row passengers. They are also very soft and comfortable like the front seats and in this model, they were heated. 

While the Highlander hybrid is smaller overall than a minivan, we found it suits our taste and lifestyle better than the Sienna.

And, there is now a Grand Highlander with even more space and extra cargo room that stole our hearts earlier this year. Our family loved that we had room for everyone and that the Highlander fit in our garage.

A few larger families we know were really curious to check it out and see how it might work for their families and I think the 3-across seating in the third row was a favorite feature!

I was thoroughly impressed with the cargo space – even with the third row in use.

Granted, it’s not the Grand Highlander (that has even more!). Incredible, right? A week’s worth of groceries for the family, a backpack or smaller roller bag for everyone, or baby gear – the Highlander is ready to haul it all. 

For less than $60,000, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is a family-hauler that’s worth taking a deeper look into if you’re like many of us who are skeptical of minivans. Plus, with the legendary Toyota reliability, there are very few ways you can go wrong.