- Toyota could use the Highlander name for an electric vehicle, likely for the 2027 model year
Toyota has a problem, but it’s a good problem to have.
The midsize 3-row Toyota Highlander SUV is sliding down the sales charts, but only because another Toyota is so good.
The company is selling almost 50% fewer Highlanders each month in 2025 than it did in 2024. But buyers aren’t leaving the brand.
Toyota recently introduced a slightly larger take on the Highlander. The Grand Highlander wears largely the same styling and has many of the same virtues. But it provides more passenger and cargo space for not much more money.
Buyers are flocking to it instead.
A new report suggests that Toyota plans to clearly distinguish between the two and attract a different set of buyers to the Highlander name. Industry publication Automotive News reports that the Highlander is going electric.
“With its sales hugely cannibalized by the 2023 introduction of the larger Grand Highlander, Toyota’s smaller three-row crossover will be reengineered in 2025 as an EV while keeping its nameplate,” AN says. “It may not appear in dealerships until early 2026,” likely as a 2027 model.
Toyota hasn’t confirmed the move. However, in a recent statement, the company said it “plans to produce two all-new, three-row battery electric SUVs in the U.S.” Analysts think the smaller of the two will wear the Highlander name.
The larger is, as-yet, unnamed. Until recently, Toyota has used a naming scheme that includes the letters “bZ” on all its electric vehicles. It introduced the first in a series of new EVs for the 2023 model year under the somewhat confusing moniker bZ4X.
For 2026, it shortened that to bZ, then introduced a larger model under the name bZ Woodland.
However, the company may abandon the “beyond zero” moniker as a failed marketing strategy. It recently launched a new, smaller EV under the resurrected name C-HR, suggesting that future EVs may not require separate branding. An all-electric Highlander would fit naturally with that plan.
