2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited Road Test Review

Who builds the best mainstream midsize seven-passenger crossover SUV available today? Hands down it’s the men and woman
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
in Princeton who work at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana, where the new Highlander is assembled.

“Best” is a highly subjective term, I know. What’s best for me may be worst for you, so I don’t expect you’ll necessarily agree with me and am not concerned if you don’t. This is my opinion, and one garnered after testing all of the midsize crossovers currently on the market. Compared to most of its competitors, the Highlander has had a lot of preparation leading up to my best-in-class vote. It started life 15 years ago and has gone through two generations and a couple of mid-cycle upgrades prior to last year’s full redesign. With each generation it’s become larger and more accommodating (not unusual from any manufacturer in any class), but with this newest iteration it not only grows in size but also in refinement.

Put
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
this seven- to eight-occupant CUV up against a number of so-called premium-branded rivals (GMC’s Acadia Denali and Buick’s Enclave immediately come to mind) and the Toyota rises above as the most luxurious and best equipped. If you’d read my reviews of the previous generation Highlander you’d know my sentiments have changed, commensurate with the quality of materials, impressive list of standard amenities and general goodness of this new model. What makes it so good?

For any vehicle to be dubbed “best” by any auto scribe it needs to be more than just well rounded. Rather, it needs to excel in every skill set, starting with styling. Again, styling is subjective, but like our attraction to people there are certain traits that the majority of humans find more likeable than others. No matter race or
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
sex, there are common preferences for eye size and shape, the shapes of the cheekbones, nose, lips, chin and of course body. Advertisers know this, which is why we keep getting “beautiful” people selling us the latest products and services (one of the other reasons why I like the Highlander – “The All-New 2014 Toyota Highlander Commercial” only included one classic beauty (mom) while the rest were just average looking (no offense) and the park ranger was brilliantly funny – and yes I realize that humour is subjective too.

The Highlander wears a fresh new Toyota truck-style grille that gives it a lot more presence than its predecessor and certainly more swagger than most of its rivals, while
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
an elegant chromed accent strikes through the top portion of the grille and into the adjacent headlights, forming an stylish visual flow from front to side. The fenders are strong and muscular, my Limited tester’s wheel cutouts filled with a gorgeous set of Iridium chrome-plated 19-inch five-spoke alloys riding on 245/55R19 tires, but the roofline is long and low enhanced by a set of near flush-mounted integrated roof rails designed to maintain a sleek and aerodynamic profile, giving the Highlander a lean, athletic appearance that only gets better as everything culminates into a particularly attractive rear end that features a large rooftop spoiler, a nice set of multi-angle taillight lenses, and a slim body-colour bumper finished off with a rugged matte black valance. Chrome detailing is tastefully applied from front to back, as are functional design elements such as jeweled headlamp clusters, fog lights, and de rigueur secondary turn signals integrated into the body-colour mirror caps. The entire look is at once bold and masculine yet somehow refined and elegant, the visual
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
essence of a rugged truck-like SUV with the obvious undertones of a comfortable, easy-to-live-with and efficient car-based crossover. The new Highlander is certainly not the first that could be described in such a manner; it’s just the best at design execution.

To find out if I’m alone in my assessment or if others agree all we need to do is “ask the audience.” We learned this is an effective way of getting the right answer to just about any question in the now classic TV game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and in the case of the new Highlander the audience has shown that it likes the new model a lot more than the old one by voting with its pocketbooks. Last year’s Canadian sales numbers reaching a record 9,749 units, besting 2013’s total by more than 2,100 units, which was also a record thanks to the redesigned Highlander having gone on sale towards the end of that year. Prior to
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
2013 the Highlander never broke the 7,000-unit threshold in Canada, proof enough that crossover SUV buyers like what they see. What’s more, Toyota sold more Highlanders last year than the aforementioned Buick and GMC models combined (and I’m not just talking about the special Acadia Denali version, but all Acadias), not to mention every other seven-plus-passenger competitor (except for the Dodge Journey that is a lot smaller plus outfitted and priced to compete with subcompact CUVs, let alone compacts).

Of course there are a lot of other good reasons the audience made the Highlander its segment’s number one seller than just styling. As mentioned, the new Highlander has made impressive strides inside too, with a larger, more accommodating cabin that’s finished to such an impressive level that it might just make
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
Lexus dealers a bit uncomfortable. Even the base LE model that I tested and covered last year boasted soft-touch surfacing on the dash top, door uppers, armrests, and lower dash tray, the latter feature continuing forward as one of the handiest smartphone/personal device holders ever incorporated into any vehicle, complete with a covered hole for slotting power cords through. The refinement continues with premium-like fabric-wrapped A-pillars done in a high-quality woven roofliner fabric, plus an attractive well-featured standard full-colour infotainment system with a standard rearview camera, extremely comfortable front seats, nice padded door inserts and door armrests, a massive roll-top centre console bin that even allows use of the leather-like armrests when it’s opened up, great looking satin silver-painted and chromed accents, swooping brown plastic trim on each door that matches another swoop wrapping around the centre stack, automatic headlamps,
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
and those integrated LED signals on the exterior mirror caps are standard too. None of the Highlander’s volume-brand competitors match its interior refinement, while few come standard with its level of top-tier features, not to mention a very competitive base price of $32,375 plus $1,690 for freight and pre-delivery prep.

The 2015 Highlander I most recently tested was also a top-line Limited model, which takes this near-premium experience another notch or two higher. In place of the entry-level LE’s attractive and nicely featured 6.1-inch infotainment system, polyurethane steering wheel and great looking patterned seat fabric, my Limited tester came with an 8.0-inch infotainment display featuring advanced voice recognition,
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
navigation, SMS-to-speech and email-to-speech functionality, plus a fabulous sounding 12-speaker JBL Synthesis sound system featuring Bluetooth streaming audio, satellite radio and more. On top of this it included a leather-wrapped heatable multifunction steering wheel, and perforated beige leather upholstery with heated and ventilated cushions up front, plus heated seats in the rear.

My driver’s seat was even more comfortable than the base LE’s seat due to eight-way powered adjustability including powered lumbar support, as well as a variable-length lower cushion and two-way memory (which also adjusts the mirrors), whereas the passenger seat gets four-way powered adjustment. Unlike the
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
base Highlander, the Limited gets genuine looking woodgrain accents on the doors and dash for a really upscale look, while automatic high-beams and dynamic cruise control make highway driving easier; clearance and backup sensors make parking less nerve-wracking; blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning, rear cross traffic alert, and a pre-collision system enhance safety; auto up/down powered windows all-round add convenience; LED ambient interior lighting provides a nice visual touch; the panoramic glass sunroof increases interior light and looks superb; while its smoked headlamp surrounds, chromed roof rails and aforementioned 19-inch rims look wonderful.

As the title of the review states, my tester was not only fitted out in Limited trim, but also came with Toyota’s well-proven Hybrid Synergy Drive system. The number of competitive
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
hybrid-electric CUVs on the market can be counted on two fingers (let alone hands), and Toyota’s experience building hybrids is now legend. The Highlander Hybrid has been on the North American market since July 2005 when it arrived as a 2006 model. That version was based on the first-generation Highlander, and there’s been a Highlander Hybrid in the mix for the last decade. Its only competitor, the Pathfinder Hybrid, has been with us since just last year, so let’s give Nissan a bit of time to iron out its wrinkles, shall we?

Toyota’s
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
tried and tested Hybrid Synergy Drive system incorporates a 3.5-litre, DOHC, 24-valve Atkinson-cycle V6 with Toyota’s Variable Valve Timing with intelligence (VVT-i) and an exhaust heat recovery system. Together with a 167-horsepower electric motor assisting the front wheels and a 68-horsepower rear motor (the two combining for Toyota’s AWD-i all-wheel drive system) the powertrain produces 280 net horsepower and 215 lb-ft of torque, although this last number feels a lot more exciting than it looks when right foot hits the floor. This is likely due to how electric motors deliver their torque, instantaneously rather than waiting to maximize revs as required by an internal combustion engine. Goose it off the line and it’ll put a smile on your face, albeit not as wide a grin as passing by yet another gas station.

There are two reasons to spend more on a hybrid. One is to follow your own guiding
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
principles by “doing the right thing,” so to speak. It’s hardly news that hybrids use less fuel and therefore contribute less to air pollution. Due to improvements made to its hybrid system over the years, the new Highlander Hybrid can run farther in EV-mode than its predecessors, making real zero-emissions usage possible in low-speed situations such as bumper-to-bumper traffic and in parking lots. As long as the battery is sufficiently charged, pressing the EV button will immediately put the Highlander Hybrid under full-electric power, which will continue until the battery (mostly) depletes itself or your speed rises above about 40 km/h. The system will swap back and forth between Eco (am mode that dulls throttle response to save fuel) and EV modes without your direct intervention as well, a green EV light illuminating amongst the primary gauges when deployed to let you know, just in case you didn’t notice the engine quietly and
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
seamlessly shut down (it really is quiet and there’s no tachometer in the gauge package to show the revs drop off, but rather a really useful and attractive needle-type “CHG”, “ECO” and “PWR” dial that fills you in on total system output, your energy regeneration status and just generally how efficiently you’re using energy while multi-information screens display the same information and more with added graphics).

As mentioned the rear electric motor adds the all-wheel component to the Highlander Hybrid’s AWD-i drivetrain. The front wheels are powered by a continuously variable transmission in Toyota hybrid tradition, and together with standard Active Torque Control, Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management (VDIM), and Hill-start Assist Control (HAC), the setup is very capable no matter the weather, delivering impressive traction that makes the most of its strong performance while still managing to eke out a fuel economy rating of 8.6 in the city,
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
8.5 on the highway and 8.5 combined, which comes close to a 30-percent improvement over the already efficient conventional V6-powered all-wheel drive Highlander’s rating of 13.0 city, 9.8 highway and 11.6 combined. Also, it should be noted that these numbers reflect Natural Resources Canada’s new five-cycle testing process that produces much more accurate results than the old two-cycle system, so you can actually expect to achieve something close to the claimed rating, depending on how you drive.

Driving in mind, the Highlander Hybrid always feels smooth and controllable, and while it handles quite well for a large seven- to eight-passenger CUV it’s not trying to pass itself off as a canyon carving performance ute. If most of us are honest with
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
ourselves we’ll admit that we don’t drive as aggressively as the cool urban metrosexuals in most of the TV ads (another reason I like the above mentioned Highlander commercial), the impressive performance offered by premium-level super-SUVs wasted on most who spend the big bucks to buy them. It’s the same mentality that previously caused many people to buy knobby tired off-roaders that never left pavement, but now it’s about having a family hauler that can really haul @$$. The Highlander Hybrid isn’t an SUV designed to stroke your ego. It’s a family hauler that drives easily, comfortably and more than quick enough to get you in trouble with the local constabulary if you’re so inclined. And don’t get me wrong, as the Highlander takes to the curves with enthusiasm thanks to some suspension upgrades last year that included stiffer spring rates and reworked dampers for enhanced mid-corner stability, plus a retuned electric power steering system that improves turn-in
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
and feel, while a higher speed digital controller does a better job of managing chassis and braking systems.

Almost as important as drivability is the Highlander Hybrid’s hushed ambiance inside, an inherent quietness that comes about by the usual sound absorbing materials tucked into all the right places, as well as the aforementioned soft-touch surfaces, an extremely rigid body structure and, of course, the vehicle’s ability to shut the engine down when it would otherwise be noisily idling and then drive at low speeds in absolute EV-powered silence.

I made mention of the new Highlander’s improved interior spaciousness, but didn’t go into detail. Both the conventionally powered Highlander and the Highlander Hybrid are slightly larger inside than most of their mid-size competitors, and of course more accommodating than the vehicles they replaced. The front seating area
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
has gained half an inch side-to-side, while the second row gets even more elbow room. Last year Toyota added the availability of eight-occupant seating, but Limited models include standard second-row captain’s chairs, reducing their capacity to a maximum of seven. My five-foot-eight body had no problem fitting into the third row of either Highlander, although it should be noted that your rearmost passengers would experience a tad less legroom in the Hybrid due to third-row legroom that’s reduced by an inch, from 702.8 mm (27.7 inches) in the regular SUV to 677.3 mm (26.7 inches) in the Hybrid. Third-row hip and shoulder room is by up to 109 mm (4.3 inches) mind you, while getting back there in the first place is much easier thanks to a one-step second-row sliding function that adds 76.2 mm (3.0 inches) of additional space between the folded seatback and door jam.

The
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
biggest area of improvement in the new Highlander’s interior roominess is in the rearmost cargo compartment, which now gets 100 additional litres (3.5 more cubic feet) resulting in 34-percent more gear-toting space behind its 60/40 split-folding third-row seatbacks. That’s a total of 390 litres (13.8 cubic feet), whereas there’s 1,198 litres (42.3 cu ft) behind the second row and 2,370 litres (83.7 cu ft) when both rear rows are laid flat. And when I say flat, I mean completely flat into the floor.

If you’re planning to tow a camp trailer or small boat, the Hybrid is good for 1,588 kilos (3,500 lbs), whereas the regular Highlander can
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
tug up to 2,268 kilograms (5,000 lbs) when equipped with a hitch.

So how much for all this hybrid-electric near-premium goodness? The 2015 Highlander Hybrid doesn’t come cheap, nor should it considering its exceptional refinement, technology and all the features included. Pricing starts at $44,415 for the base Hybrid LE before moving up to $46,840 for the Hybrid XLE, and finally tops out at $53,390 for the Limited model I drove, plus freight of course. My tester’s Alumina Jade Metallic was one of seven no-cost paint choices, Blizzard Pearl the only hue needing a $255 surcharge.

Some additional features that grandfather over from base to Limited trim include proximity sensing remote access with pushbutton ignition, power-adjustable heated mirrors, variable intermittent wipers, a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, faux leather door inserts, heated front seats, tri-zone automatic climate control, a reverse camera, a powered liftgate with selectable memory height
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
settings, a handy flip-up rear hatch window, fog lamps, and of course a full suite of safety gear including Toyota’s Star Safety System that incorporates stability and traction control, ABS-enhanced four-wheel disc brakes, electronic brake-force distribution, emergency brake assist, and Smart Stop Technology (SST), which cuts engine power when panic braking, plus all the usual airbags including one for the driver’s knees, while items that carry over from the XLE to Limited model include the aforementioned 19-inch aluminum rims, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, 4.2-inch TFT multi-information display (the base model gets a 3.5-inch LCD display), an integrated garage door opener, rear door sunshades, an anti-theft system, roof rail crossbars, and more.

No doubt the Highlander Hybrid’s extensive list of standard and optional features, as well as its excellent fit and finish, reasonable initial pricing and lower than average running costs went a long way to help it earn back-to-back wins for 2013 and
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
2014 in the hybrid/crossover category for best value from automotive analyst firm Vincentric LLC, while the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) gave the 2015 Highlander its Best New SUV/CUV in the $35,000 to $60,000 range. What might matter even more to parents is the 2015 Highlander’s Top Safety Pick+ ranking by the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), an award also given to Toyota’s Camry, Sienna, Prius and Prius V, as well as various Lexus models.

These types of awards are expected of Toyota products, and while impressive they do little to lure the brand’s faithful followers back into the showroom when it comes time to trade up. These customers already know how good their Toyotas are. They come back to their Yaris hatchbacks, Corolla, Camry and Avalon sedans, RAV4,
2015 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited
Photo: Karen Tuggay, Canadian Auto Press
Venza and Highlander CUVs, 4Runner and Sequoia SUVs, Sienna minivans, Tacoma and Tundra pickups, Prius, Prius C, Prius V, Camry and Highlander hybrids over and over, year after year, and in some cases decade after decade. And now with new more exciting designs and much more enticing interiors filled with loads of the latest high-tech gadgetry these customers will be all the more impressed, a fitting reward for their loyalty.

As for Highlander and Highlander Hybrid customers, I can pretty much guarantee that Toyota won’t lose a single one to a competitor this year. These are easily the best CUVs in their class.
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