2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Reviews
The 2008 Highlander Hybrid ranks near the top of its class for offering a spacious interior, smooth ride, and refined hybrid powertrain. Unfortunately, the hybrid demands quite a premium over its gasoline-powered counterpart -- and even over other hybrids, including the Ford Escape Hybrid and Saturn VUE Green Line.
Hybrid. To date, mass-produced hybrids have used a combination of gasoline-fuelled internal combustion engines and battery-powered electric motors.
There’s one more important distinction to be made in mass-produced gas-electric hybrids: a “parallel” hybrid uses an electric motor to start a gas engine and boost its output, but the gas engine is always required to propel the vehicle--The conventional gas-powered Highlander is a personal favourite of mine.
Let’s start with the pricing: the base Highlander Hybrid carries a sticker price of $41,075, or $4,175 more than the base V6 Highlander. The gas version generates 36 more lb-ft of torque than the hybrid. The hybrid is primarily a front-driver (the rear electric motor provides supplementary traction when required) while the gas Highlander uses a full-time all-wheel drive system. The gas version uses a five-speed automatic transmission while the Hybrid gets a continuously-variable transmission (CVT) in the interest of fuel economy.
The Hybrid’s lower city fuel consumption (contrary to that of any gas-powered vehicle) is a result of its ability to turn the gas engine off while stopped and in situations where power demand is very low.
Toyota tells me that both conventional and hybrid vehicles will suffer from increased fuel consumption in cold weather, which is true.
The 2008 model year update to the Toyota Highlander Hybrid took the unoriginal path, reflected by model updates across the industry, of making everything bigger. The new Highlander Hybrid gets a unique cabin feature: a standard small LCD display at the top of the dashboard stack, which displays the rear-view camera and hybrid system information. Without the cabin gadgets, our Highlander Hybrid seemed a little bare.
We happened to get the 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid in for our review the same week as the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show, so we took the car on the approximately 800-mile round trip. With luggage for three nights, we didn't exactly fill the large interior of the Highlander Hybrid. Going over the winding path of 101, up and down hills along the coast at about 70 mph, the Highlander Hybrid got about 24 mpg, a little shy of its 25 mpg EPA highway rate.
The Highlander Hybrid swayed in a disconcerting fashion, but stayed upright. If you want to read about the available cabin tech on the Highlander Hybrid Limited, please read our review of the "2008 Toyota Highlander Limited". Our base model Highlander Hybrid used some questionable material in the cabin, such as fake wood-grain plastic over the console.
