Toyota is perhaps the most American automaker today, given how many of its best-selling models are made and mostly sold in the US, and how much of a part it is in the country’s landscape. The average American taxi was not a Ford Crown Victoria for many years, and the typical suburban American family car was not a car; it might be a Highlander or something like it. Which makes it all the more significant that the Toyota Highlander is going all-electric.

the 2027 Toyota Highlander was revealed on Tuesday in California, and although it does not look like the recent offers of the American company, it is very different underneath. It’s even a departure from Toyota’s existing EV offerings such as the bZ SUV (previously the less obvious name bZ4X) and new bZ Woodland and C-HR.

Toyota has a recent tendency to go all hybrids for its popular models, as it did with the Camry in 2025 and the RAV4 in 2026, and of course, there is still the Prius which is always a hybrid. The Highlander is a different story, however, as it takes a 25-year-old gas or hybrid-powered name and goes all-in on full electric power, and there’s logic to the madness.

In 2024, Toyota introduced the Grand Highlander, which basically used the same engines as the regular Highlander but was bigger, and most people bought that instead of the old model. The company is already planning a three-row EV SUV for North America, too. Given that there are so many things called “Highlander” at Toyota dealerships, this is an easy fix. And if you want a gas-powered engine in a sea of ​​other gasoline-powered seven-seat SUVs, they’ll still happily sell you a Grand Highlander.

For the 2027 Highlander, however, Toyota has chosen a battery pack made from a new battery facility in North Carolina, and the car is made at an existing plant in Kentucky. Both base models get a 77-kWh battery, and the single-motor version gets 221 horsepower, but most use the 95.8-kWh pack that the company estimates is good for up to 320 miles on a charge, and all dual-motor, all-wheel drive versions get 338 horsepower. A Tesla-style NACS charging port for DC fast charging from 10-80% in 30 minutes has been built in, and the Highlander is Toyota’s first EV with Vehicle-to-Load for home power backup—or tailgating, if that’s the bigger priority at the time.

Most versions have six seats in three rows, although one model will be offered with a seven-passenger capability; the footprint is similar to the old combustion-engined model. There’s an updated infotainment system using AT&T’s 5G connectivity and, of course, an updated voice assistant that forces you to prompt it with, “Hey, Toyota!” A Drive Recorder, which Toyota describes as similar to a dashcam, is standard and can capture 20-second clips.

While it is not possible that Toyota will quickly leave a car that is mostly finished just because it will lose the $7,500 federal tax credit (and probably qualified for all of this given its domestic content), it faces an uphill battle that direct rivals such as the Hyundai Ioniq 9 and Kia EV9 have: perhaps people who want six or seven seats in a car of this size are not yet ready for it to be all-electric.

Sales of the Kia EV9 were relatively stable in 2024, the first full year of sales, with about 22,000 sold before sales fell by almost a third in 2025 despite the transfer of production from South Korea to the US. Only broke 1,000 sales in a month a few times.

And those would be mainstream sellers, unlike the troubled Volvo EX90 (4,000 sold last year) or the Cadillac Vistiq (about 8,000 sold), or the expected Volkswagen ID Buzz van that managed more than 6,000 in US sales in 2025 but still leaves the company with a huge backlog. it is on hiatus for 2026 with a promise of a 2027 model going on sale sometime this year. And the three rows The Tesla Model X is absolutely to die for soon, even though it was old, sold slowly, and no one who had to sit in the back still liked the doors.

Taxi drivers tend to stick with the Grand Highlander Hybrid because of its proven engine, relatively decent fuel economy, and likely lower upfront costs. There’s a good chance Uber and Lyft drivers will do the same, given the reported backlash incentive for drivers to electrify.

And Toyota’s hybrid strength may be enough to convince many private consumers who flock to gas-powered, large three-row SUVs in their suburban communities to stick with a gas or hybrid-powered Grand Highlander to this new, practical, and promising Highlander EV.

Because if new vehicle costs remain high, employment and economic uncertainty continue, and the development of electric charging infrastructure, most people who imagine riding vehicles of this type on the famous American road trip are unlikely to change their behavior by the time this electric Highlander goes on sale at the end of 2026.