Some people don’t deserve nice things, do they? While electric vehicle sales surge around the world (and took 23% of the new car market in the UK), the USA was one of the few markets to post a decline in 2025, sales plunging in the final quarter of the year as incentives on zero emission cars were suddenly removed.
But the United States gets this new seven-seat electric Toyota Highlander all to itself for the time being, with the car revealed in California this week and set to go on sale towards the end of the year.
The new car will be the fifth generation of Highlander, the first one in 2000 was built for the Japanese home market, but production shifted to America and China from the second generation onwards.
The fourth generation version was even briefly sold in the UK between 2021 and 2023 with a hybrid powertrain, but evidently wasn’t the smash hit that Toyota might have hoped it would be.
But could this new car change that? Hear us out – there’s an increasing amount of choice when it comes to seven-seater EVs (see every option on the market listed helpfully here), but a solid car like this one could go down gangbusters in areas where under-10s five aside Sunday morning football is particularly popular.
The new Toyota Highlander is being built at Toyota’s Kentucky factory (in Kentucky) and will come with two battery sizes. The ‘smaller’ 77kWh battery is designed for urban driving, says Toyota USA, for those shopping trips that your 287-mile range will just about reach.
The larger 96kWh battery comes with an all-wheel-drive powertrain and is aimed at those customers who have places to be, earning a 320-mile range.
Both those cars will have been measured on the US EPA test procedure, which is a little more realistic than the Euro-specific WLTP one. Toyota says the car will come with V2L capability as standard and that it’s aiming for a 30-minute 10%–80% charge time on a 150kW charger.
As well as seven seats, the new Highlander gets a 14.0-inch infotainment screen, panoramic glass roof, and ’ample’ device charging opportunities.
Toyota says that there are 18 cupholders inside the cabin – that’s more than two cups per passenger, so you’ll definitely need to stop more than every 287 miles. Pop the third row of seats down and you’ll have 1,274 litres of space to play with.
The relatively tiddly bZ4X remains the biggest electric Toyota you can buy right now, but there's also the RAV4 plug-in hybrid if you're into that sort of thing – doesn't come with seven seats though sadly.
Is this what true luxury is? Seven seats and all the cups you can hold 
