Here’s Everything You Wanted To Know About The New 2027 Toyota Highlander

You may recall that there was recently some big news in the non-immortal-person Highlander world: Toyota has announced an all-new Highlander that is now a battery-electric vehicle. Even though this is sort of an odd, maybe inopportune time to release a new battery EV into the market, it makes a lot of sense as Toyota’s combustion-engined Grand Highlander, introduced in 2023, now outsells the current Highlander by about 2.5:1 .

Toyota has effectively made the old Highlander redundant, which means they’re free now to replace that model with something new, that fills a similar market hole but is radically different under the skin: a battery-electric crossover.

This new EV Highlander is Toyota’s first three-row EV to be brought to America since the founding of the country in 1776. Toyota seems quite excited about their new mass-market EV crossover, and good, they should be, though I think they may be getting a little PR-delulu when they write headers in the press release like:

“Highlander Reimagined for 2027, with All-New, Head-Turning Style, Elevated Comfort, and All-Electric Powertrain”

Nobody’s head is turning unless a Highlander accidentally clocks someone with a side-view mirror. I mean, it looks good, don’t get me wrong, but there could have been one parked at your local Target and you’d have walked right by it. That may sound harsh, but let’s just be honest here. Again, the redesign looks good, and the car now features what is becoming Toyota’s new corporate face, which was first introduced with the latest Prius redesign, and is a clean, largely grille-less affair with Toyota’s now signature thin LED light bar that angles up at each end into the DRLs.

Before I get too much more into telling you about the Highlander from what Toyota has told me, why don’t I show you what I found out based on questions you, our svelte and charming readers, asked me to find out yesterday, when I had about 20 minutes with the new Highlander:

And yes, before you even watch, I will tell you that I respected your inquiries and tried to show you as much as I could, including tasting the floormats. Here’s a still from the moment where I was cataloging the delicate dance of flavors to try and figure out how to best describe it to you:

That’s the look of a man who just licked a floormat. You’re welcome.

Since that’s sort of a deeply unserious moment, let me switch gears here and just dump all of those specs that I know you want, just to get it out of the way. We’ll start with the all-important battery size and range:

• XLE FWD with 77.0-kWh battery with a manufacturer-estimated 287-mile total driving range rating*

• XLE AWD with 77.0-kWh battery with a manufacturer-estimated 270-mile total driving range rating*

• XLE AWD with 95.8 -kWh battery with a manufacturer-estimated 320-mile total driving range rating*

• Limited AWD with 95.8 -kWh battery with a manufacturer-estimated 320-mile total driving range rating*

So, two battery sizes, ranges that range in range from a rangy 270 miles to a range-ranging maximum range in the range of 320 miles. Also: range.

Not bad numbers, nothing Earth-shattering, but certainly good enough for most of what these will be used for, especially if you’re able to charge at home. The Highlander has a NACS port for Level 3 DC charging, and Toyota claims that “under ideal conditions” when using DC fast charging, it can go from 10% to 80% in 30 minutes. Based on my experience with public chargers, I don’t know how much I’d rely on getting “ideal conditions,” but those are reasonable, if ideal, numbers.

In a way, this all feels very Toyota: careful, well-considered, and with reliability at the forefront. They may have been able to do faster more aggressive charging, but that would have introduced thermal issues and a cascade of related complications, and based on how Toyota’s technical ethos seems to work, I’m not too surprised they’re playing it a bit more conservatively.

When it comes to power, the AWD version has 338 combined horsepower from both driven axles, with 323 pound-feet of torque. The FWD versions make 221 hp, and 198 pound-feet of twisty-force. Like all these numbers, this feels competitive and certainly adequate but not necessarily surprising. If the acceleration is similar to Toyota’s bZ line of EVs, I think we can expect 0-60 number of around five to six seconds, given the extra weight of the Highlander. That’s plenty quick.

Toyota provided this absurdly dark picture of the interior, shot from the third row, and while it’s hard to tell what’s going on there, I can tell you the interior has very nice materials and a pleasing, well-considered design. It’s not particularly unexpected and while there is a sort of diagonal line/hashmark visual motif going, it doesn’t have a whole lot of genuine distinction. It’s nice, and most of the target audience for the Highlander I think will enjoy it.

The third row is about as upright as a Methodist chapel pew but it’s pretty comfortable, and there’s a good amount of leg room, at least for a hors d’oeuvre-sized human like myself. There’s cupholders and USB-C ports back there, too.

All of the expected electronic and connectivity stuff seems to be here, including the all-important Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with Toyota’s suite of driver-assist tech. There’s a six-speaker audio system, a dashcam-like functionality using the built-in cameras, and the paddle shifters control the brake regen, which is a good use for those.

The doorhandles are powered, which I still maintain are stupid, and they have a manual release right in there, too, which, though I couldn’t get it to work, begs the question of why are they building two kinds of door opening mechanism in the same damn handle. Powered ones just aren’t that cool. Door handles are a solved problem. Just let them be mechanical, eph eph ess.

Cargo-wise, there’s a good bit of room in that boxy body; with the third row up there’s still a decent amount of room for the, oh, seven people’s luggage, if they pack light; if you watch the video, you can see that I can fit back there, too.

With the rearmost row down, there’s a nice flat load space that’s quite big, and the rear cargo opening is nice and wide and fairly rectangular, too.  And yes, those are amber rear indicators! Nicely done, Toyota.

My only real storage disappointment is this:

There’s no frunk. And yes, I realize the Highlander has plenty of cargo room without it, but that’s not the point. This is an ethical issue; if there is a significant volume of potentially usable space for the owner, the owner should have access to use such space. And there is plenty of space under that hood. Companies like Hyundai and Kia and Volvo and others manage to carve out small but useful volumes of space under their hoods – why can’t the World’s Biggest Automaker do the same? Frunks are great for cables and a blanket and other stuff that would ordinarily be rattling around the main cargo area.

Maybe there will be aftermarket frunk inserts. Still, it’s disappointing.

I’m about to go to the official reveal in like 30 minutes, and there may be more I’ll find out. But the embargo for this lifts at 9:30 Eastern/6:30 Pacific, and the silly rules of the internet dictate we must have something up right away, so there you go. I’ll update if I learn anything revolutionary.

Oh I almost forgot! Get a load of these color names:

“Available exterior paint colors on the new Highlander further its expressive nature. Single tone colors include the all-new Spellbound, along with Wind Chill Pearl, Heavy Metal, Everest, Reservoir Blue, and Midnight Black Metallic. Two tone paint combinations are also available, pairing Spellbound, Wind Chill Pearl, Heavy Metal, or Everest with a black roof. Interior colors are clean and modern, with Black, Portobello, and an all-new Misty Gray available.”

I love color names. Spellbound! Heavy Metal! Everest! Too bad they’re all the usual boring slate of slate grays and whites and blacks, but there is at least one blue in there.

The biggest unanswered question, of course, is how much it will cost. A Toyota rep I spoke with suggested that a final price has yet to be decided, but I know it’ll be over $22,500 because of how he laughed when I said that string of numbers. If I had to guess, I bet these will start somewhere around $40,000 and probably get up above $60,000 for the top end. I’m just guessing, of course, but that seems likely.