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The 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander is bigger and roomier than the regular Highlander, but it has more to offer than that.The Grand Highlander has three powertrain options, including an 362-hp hybrid setup from the Toyota Crown quasi-sedan.To improve interior packaging and ride comfort versus the regular version, the Grand Highlander features a redesigned rear suspension.Toyota will have to forgive folks who think the newly introduced Grand Highlander is simply an XL version of the regular Highlander. The new entry goes beyond just being bigger, but size-based assumptions are bound to happen when an adjective like grand is plopped into a popular nameplate—and the Highlander has proved pretty popular.Making the Highlander More PopularOver the past two years, Toyota has sold nearly 487,000 Highlanders, making the three-row mid-sizer its second-best-selling SUV in the U.S. behind only the compact RAV4. However, the brand believes there’s more meat on the bone, so it’s introducing the 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander to satiate customers who crave a big interior without an overly bulky body. Basically, Toyota expects the Grand Highlander to fill the space between the full-size Sequoia and the regular Highlander. Dimensionally, it does just that. At 201.4 inches front to back, the Grand Highlander is 6.5 inches longer than its smaller sibling and roughly 7 inches shorter than the Sequoia. The Grand also stands 2 inches taller and spans 2.3 inches wider than the regular Highlander. With about 116 inches between its axles, the bigger Highlander’s wheelbase is approximately 4 inches longer than its counterpart.Obviously, the Grand Highlander’s increased exterior proportions translate to a roomier interior, particularly in the cargo area and third row. Compared with the regular Highlander, the Grand’s rearmost row gains 5.5 inches of legroom (33.5 versus 28 inches). There’s also an extra inch of headroom and over 2 inches of additional shoulder space. This 5’10” author sat in the enlarged third row and found it to be genuinely comfortable, even with the second-row captain’s chairs slid all the way back. It’s also nice that Toyota includes a USB-C port and dual cupholders for outboard passengers back there. Unlike the regular Highlander, the Grand offers ventilated second-row captain’s chairs, but only on the top-spec Platinum trim. The XLE and Limited are the only other models; both are available with a second-row bench seat that unlocks an extra spot for an eighth passenger. ToyotaToyotaWith either seven or eight people onboard, the Grand Highlander boasts 21 cubic feet of cargo volume behind its third row (five more than the smaller version). Stowing the seats in the back two rows opens up 98 cubes of storage space, which is 14 more than the regular Highlander.Grand Gets More than a Bigger BodyThe Grand Highlander is built on the same TNGA-K platform that underpins the regular Highlander. Of course, Toyota did more than just stretch its proportions. We’re told the Grand’s structure is more rigid overall due to extra spot welds and additional adhesives, which are also expected to help reduce noise, vibration, and harshness levels.Along with improved NVH, the Grand Highlander’s interior packaging and ride comfort are said to benefit from a redesigned rear suspension. Toyota says structural changes to the multilink setup on the bigger Highlander were designed to maximize the space in the third row and cargo area as well as make the ride more comfortable.Arguably the biggest difference between the two Highlanders is the Grand’s exclusive hybrid powertrain (dubbed “Hybrid Max”) that’s cribbed from Toyota’s quasi-sedan, the high-riding Crown. While it’s retuned for use in the Grand Highlander—namely to support its 5000-pound max towing capacity—the hybrid setup is otherwise said to be similar.Toyota hasn’t released many technical specs about the Grand Highlander’s Hybrid Max powertrain, except that it makes 362 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque. Still, the SUV should continue to pair a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder with two electric motors. One of them exclusively powers the rear axle (resulting in all-wheel drive), and the other goes between the gas engine and six-speed automatic transmission. Multiple Powertrains and Mature LooksAs with the regular Highlander, the Grand is available with a gas-only turbo four and a less powerful hybrid option, giving customers a total of three choices. Toyota hasn’t released outputs for either powertrain, but we’re told both are essentially the same—besides the obligatory tuning changes, of course. In the smaller Highlander, that means a 265-hp turbocharged 2.4-liter four-pot with an eight-speed automatic and a 2.5-liter four-cylinder with a CVT and two electric motors that combine for 243 hp. Toyota estimates the latter will earn up to 34 mpg combined. Both powertrains are available with front- or all-wheel drive on the Grand.While the regular Highlander has a rather distinctive look with prominent side surfacing, we think the Grand appears more mature. It has a boxier profile that’s spearheaded by an assertive mug—and people say BMW’s grilles are oversized? The rest of the design is requisite of most modern SUVs: a high beltline, lower body cladding, and available 20-inch wheels.Inside, the Grand Highlander Platinum we saw first-hand gave off Lexus vibes with its attractive materials and soft-touch surfaces. While only the top-of-the-line trim has a digital rearview mirror and a head-up display, it shares a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster with the rung-below Limited. Both trims also have standard leather-trimmed upholstery, a heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated front seats, and heated rear seats.All three of the Grand Highlander’s trims have a crisp 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. They all have a big center console with a wireless charging pad below the physical controls for the HVAC unit. We also appreciate the sliding cover for the large center-console bin, which Toyota says is big enough to hold a tablet. As is the case with all Toyotas, every Grand Highlander has a host of standard driver-assistance technology that includes adaptive cruise control, automated emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, and even blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert. The Platinum alone has a 360-degree camera system.Toyota has yet to say how much the 2023 Grand Highlander will cost or when it will go on sale. Those details are expected to be announced sometime the coming months. If we had to guess, we’d expect the new XL version to range somewhere between $43K and $56K. That would make it a little pricier than the regular Highlander, but don’t forget the Grand is more than just a size up.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More

Toyota is expanding its SUV lineup for 2024 with the new Grand Highlander, a roomier alternative to the three-row Highlander that has been on sale in its current form since 2020. While the two models may share a name, there are plenty of distinguishing features that set the new Grand Highlander apart from its smaller sibling.ToyotaExteriorThe most obvious difference is the design. Not only is the Grand Highlander larger—stretching 6.5 inches longer, 2.0 inches taller, and 2.3 inches wider—but the new crossover also benefits from unique styling. The slicked-back front end of the Highlander has been swapped for more upright, boxier looks dominated by straight lines and sharp angles. The rear end is also fresh, with a D-pillar and taillights more reminiscent of the compact RAV4 than the mid-size Highlander. While the regular Highlander has a trendy blacked-out A-pillar and a slight slope to the roofline, the Grand Highlander model sticks to a more traditional roofline. The Grand Highlander.ToyotaThe 2023 Highlander.ToyotaInteriorAn extra four inches in the wheelbase improves interior space, with the third row adding 5.5 inches of legroom, an inch of headroom, and more than 2 inches of shoulder space. Not only is the third row actually comfortable for adults now, but the rearmost passengers are also treated to a USB-C port, absent in the standard Highlander. Both crossovers feature dual cupholders in the third row.The Grand Highlander also distinguishes itself by offering ventilated captain’s chairs for the second row in the top Platinum trim. The Grand’s added length is a boon for cargo space as well, with five more cubic feet behind the third row or an extra 14 cubic feet with the the two rear rows folded away.The dashboard has been tweaked with a more streamlined design, but like the more expensive trims of the Highlander, the Grand has both a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and a 12.3-inch central touchscreen. Just as with the standard Highlander, you’ll have to upgrade to the top-of-the-line Platinum model if you want goodies like a head-up display and a digital rearview mirror.ToyotaPowertrainsThe Grand Highlander will be offered with three powertrain choices. The headlining act is the Hybrid Max setup, which first debuted in the Crown last summer. A turbocharged 2.4-liter inline-four works in conjunction with two electric motors—one powering the rear axle and the other sandwiched between the engine and the six-speed automatic transmission. This powertrain has been beefed up for use in the Grand Highlander, producing a combined 362 horsepower—up from 340 ponies in the Crown—and 400 pound-feet of torque. Toyota also says it’s been adjusted to help the Grand Highlander achieved a 5000-pound max towing capacity, which equals the maximum for the standard Highlander.The Grand also comes with two lesser powertrains both found in the smaller Highlander. Toyota didn’t specify outputs but said that little has changed, besides tuning differences to account for the Grand’s, well, grander size. The base engine is a turbocharged 2.4-liter inline-four paired with an eight-speed automatic, which makes 265 hp in the standard Highlander. A hybrid setup combining 2.5-liter four-cylinder with two electric motors and CVT gearbox for a total of 243 hp is also available in both SUVs. Just as in the original Highlander, these powertrains are offered in the Grand with front- or all-wheel drive, but the Hybrid Max is all-wheel-drive-only thanks to the electric motor on the rear axles. The 2023 Highlander.ToyotaChassis and SuspensionThe Grand Highlander, unsurprisingly, shares its TNGA-K platform with the standard Highlander, but Toyota didn’t leave the Grand’s structure untouched. The automaker says that the body is stronger and stiffer thanks to more spot welds and extra adhesives. These upgrades are also said to keep the cabin quieter and better isolate the occupants from vibrations or bumps in the road. Contributing to this smoother, more placid ride is a revised rear suspension that sees the multilink setup redesigned to increase the roominess of the third row and cargo area.More New ToyotasPriceAs is the case for most new car reveals, Toyota isn’t yet divulging the price of the 2024 Grand Highlander. We predict that the enlarged crossover will start at $43,000, with the top Platinum trim opening around $56,000. This will put it about $4000 to $6000 higher than the regular Highlander, and we expect the Hybrid Max to only be offered on the Limited and Platinum, with the XLE receiving just the base engine and less-powerful hybrid setup.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More

This 1925 White Model 15-45 served as a tour bus in Yellowstone National Park, and needs to be hand-cranked to start.A 50-horsepower inline-four resides under the hood, and the bus can hold up to 11 passengers.There are six days before the Bring a Trailer auction ends, with bidding currently at $7500.Car and DriverThe vivid Kodachrome colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring. The tower of spray erupting from the Old Faithful Geyser. Herds of shaggy bison moseying across lush fields of green. Yellowstone National Park—comprising land in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho—features some of America’s most stunning natural scenes. These days you can tour the park from the climate-controlled comfort of your car, but in the early 20th century, visitors were shepherded around the park in busses like the one you see here. This 1925 White Model 15-45 is one of 214 11-passenger buses used by the Yellowstone Park Transportation Company, and it is now up for auction on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos.Bring a TrailerThe Yellowstone Park Transportation Company (YPTCo) was created in 1898, 26 years after President Ulysses S. Grant signed the congressional act protecting the land. The company initially used horse-drawn stagecoaches, but after securing the exclusive rights to transportation at the park in 1916, the YPTCo commissioned a fleet of sightseeing vehicles from the Cleveland, Ohio-based White Motor Company. (White’s early vehicles used steam power, and two sitting presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, were owners.) The Model 15-45 joined the fleet in 1920, and White would go on to build busses for several national parks—including Yosemite and Grand Canyon—through the late 1930s, with Glacier still offering tours in its vintage people carriers. Bring a TrailerThis 1925 White 11-passenger bus is motivated by an inline-four that was rated at 50 horsepower back in the day—however many ponies are left are sent to the rear wheels through a four-speed manual transmission. The 15-45 requires the use of a hand crank to start and rides on a front beam axle and a live rear axle with leaf springs. The driving controls appear similar to that of the Ford Model T, with three pedals, a floor-mounted shift lever, and stalks controlling the throttle and spark timing on the steering wheel.More Cool Auction CarsThe 11-passenger body, from an Ohio-based coachbuilder called the Bender Body Company, features four doors on the right side and fake doors on the left side, designed to stop passengers from disembarking into the middle of the road. A spare tire sits next to the driver’s seat and a body-colored trunk is strapped onto the rear of the bus. After its tour of duty in Yellowstone, this bus spent its years in Arizona and Montana, with the engine reportedly rebuilt in 2009 just before the seller purchased the vehicle. Under the current owner, the White Model 15-45 also received a repaint in the original YPTCo livery, a replacement canvas top, and a re-trim of the black vinyl seating. The gigantic Goodyear tires are showing signs of dry rot, and there are other signs of corrosion, but this amazing piece of history is in solid shape for a nearly 100-year-old vehicle. If you want to experience the great outdoors in style, there are six days left on the auction, with bidding currently at $7500. Just remember that there are no windows, so don’t get too close to the bison or the bears. More

Chevy is revising the TrailBlazer SUV for 2024 with styling and technology changes.The front- and rear-end designs are revised, and there are new colors and wheel designs.An 11.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system is new and standard across the board.The big news for Chevy’s 2024 small-SUV lineup is the arrival of a new Trax, but the similarly sized TrailBlazer is getting some revisions as well. With updated styling, new colors, and larger screens inside, the 2024 TrailBlazer gets a bit more appealing on the surface but remains the same mechanically. The base price is up by $1000, to $24,395, while the top RS and Activ models now start at $28,395.The new colors are Copper Harbor and Cacti Green, and the wheel designs are new, with the RS trim (pictured at top) getting a new 19-inch wheel to go along with its sportier design elements. The front- and rear-end designs are freshened, with different grilles, bumpers, headlights, and taillights. The Activ, as before, has its own grille design and bits of trim that are meant to make it look more rugged.ChevroletMore on Chevy SUVsInside, the driver is greeted with an 8.0-inch digital gauge cluster and a significantly larger 11.0-inch touchscreen in the center of the dash. This new screen is standard, and that’s a significant upgrade over the previous model, which had a 7.0-inch touchscreen standard and an 8.0-inch touchscreen optional on higher trims. The new screen offers wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.The 2024 TrailBlazer’s base engine is a turbocharged 1.2-liter inline-three with 137 horsepower, and this comes with a continuously variable automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. The upgrade choice is a turbocharged 1.3-liter inline-three with 155 horsepower that pairs with a nine-speed automatic transmission and offers all-wheel drive as an option. This differentiates it from the Trax, which is less expensive but comes only with the 1.2L engine, a six-speed automatic transmission, and front-wheel drive.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More

Honda’s next hydrogen-powered vehicle will be a plug-in version of the CR-V, arriving in 2024.Honda co-developed the new fuel cell system with GM and said it would cost just a third as much as the fuel cell stack in the Clarity while also being more durable.Honda will build 2000 units of its next-gen fuel cell system a year by 2025, but some will likely be used by industry partners. Honda’s next hydrogen-powered vehicle will be a version of the new CR-V with plug-in capability. The automaker started talking last year about this follow-up to the company’s previous H2 vehicle, the Clarity Fuel Cell, which was discontinued in 2021, and now the picture surrounding the powertrain is becoming a bit clearer.Honda Clarity Fuel Cell. HondaHonda announced in 2022 that its next-generation fuel cell vehicle, based on the CR-V, will go on sale in 2024 in North America and Japan. The hydrogen-powered SUV will use a fuel cell system co-developed with GM and will have two H2 tanks in the rear of the vehicle, an intelligent power unit under the seats and a fuel cell system and drive unit mounted as one under the front hood. The battery in the plug-in part of the equation won’t power the CR-V for too many miles and is apparently small enough that it didn’t merit space on Honda’s vague diagram of the upcoming vehicle. Honda said the hydrogen CR-V will also have a power export function.Who’s Going to Get This CR-V?Honda isn’t saying if the new H2 CR-V will be sold outside California, the only place where the Clarity Fuel Cell could be leased, but did say production of the fuel cell CR-V will begin in 2024 at the Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio, including vehicles that will be exported to Japan.Honda remains coy about further details regarding the vehicle itself but did announce more information about the CR-V’s next-generation fuel system this week. Ryan Harty, senior manager and division lead of the energy solution business division at American Honda Motor Company, said that the new system is more than twice as durable and has “significantly faster” startup times at frigid temperatures (under -22 degrees F). Also, Harty said, compared to the fuel cell system found in the now-defunct Clarity, the next-gen system costs two-thirds less to build. That massive drop is thanks to changes in materials, like using “innovative materials” for electrodes and manufacturing specifications, as well as a plan to simply build more units.Honda never announced how many Clarity Fuel Cell vehicles it sold, although a spokesperson told Car and Driver that there had been 2116 total leases of that model in the U.S. Still, given that Honda sold only around 41,000 of all versions of Clarity vehicles during the five years it was available (most of them being the plug-in-hybrid version), the company will only have to increase production a little to improve the economies of scale. Honda said it plans to build around 2000 units of its next-gen fuel cell system a year by 2025 at the Fuel Cell System Manufacturing Center that Honda and GM run in Michigan. By 2030, Honda plans to build 60,000 units a year of either this unit or a further improved fuel cell system. Honda has not announced any development or manufacturing partners for the future-gen system (in other words, GM is not necessarily involved) but plans to make it even more powerful and cost-effective.Honda”Compared to the next-generation system, we set additional targets to reduce the cost by one-half and to double the durability,” Harty said. “We’re targeting to make the future-generation system to be comparable with diesel engines in terms of ease of use and total cost of ownership.” Looking to Spread This Technology AroundHonda said it sees fuel cell systems as vital players in a carbon-neutral society and doesn’t just want to put them in cars. The automaker is searching for partners to test them in commercial vehicles, stationary power stations and construction machinery. Harty said Honda is actively looking for partners in North America to work on fuel cell commercial trucks. Honda is currently testing hydrogen trucks in China with Dongfeng Motors and will start before April 2024 in Japan with Isuzu. In the mid-2020s, Honda will begin selling its fuel cell system to partners in the transportation and industry sectors.”Basically, our [message today] is really about announcing that the fuel cell power train is technically ready to step in and help not only Honda but other companies to achieve their carbon neutrality and sustainability goals,” Harty said. “To do that, together, we have to develop the business ecosystem and the hydrogen infrastructure around that in order for those customers to achieve their goals.”This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. More