The biggest bambita for kodiaks. The Toyota Highlander is an American giant and hybrid fuel efficient

Not quite. Multi-seater cars are expensive. Thus, demand with some delay copies the economic boom and market optimism. Covid tarnishes our perspective a bit, but the second half of the past decade has been accompanied by a deep breath and recovery from the previous crisis.

People have also invested more in housing, and under the pressure of rising real estate prices in cities, the population has spilled over into the surrounding agglomerations, which we are seeing throughout Europe. With this, there is a growing need to drive children to all clubs and sports activities. Seven-seater carriages will come in handy here, because you and your teenagers will pick up the neighbors’ children from volleyball, and next time they will do it for you.

In the end, the SUV fashion grew to these dimensions. This is a huge change for Europe, because box minibuses have so far prevailed, considered to be the opposite of car and life attractiveness. The adventurous appearance of pseudo-terrain cars is far more appealing, and people spend millions more willingly.

Toyota also had to calculate all this well before Highlander introduced us. It has been selling it in America and Australia for twenty years, where it fits better. They measure the same five meters in length as diplomatic limousines, so that, for example, the Škoda Kodiaq grows by an honest thirty centimeters. This is most evident in the trunk, of which 240 liters remain usable even after the rear two seats have been folded down.

But the American feeling of excess space is felt everywhere. The Highlander is also five numbers wider and ten higher. As soon as you climb the old-fashioned steps into the cabin and relax in comfortable armchairs, it’s as if you find yourself somewhere on Route 66 and looking across the wide hood to a turnoff to Barringer Crater.

Perhaps you will forgive the author of the text for this sly cliché over the information that Highlander is really made in the USA. But don’t expect hard plastics with the elegance of weathered basalt, like the Chevrolet Malibu from the airport rental company once enchanted you with. Highlander, on the other hand, is an example of what Japanese brands have overtaken Detroit. Quality finishes, precise operation of the controls and attention to even less important details.

The lion’s share of the stress-free impression is supplely supple suspension and smooth reactions of the hybrid drive. No jerking, no shifting, just a continuous pull. If you just wait a little and don’t push the saw, the four-cylinder petrol engine will be able to roll quietly at low speed all day. The rest is taken care of by electricity, unobtrusively recharged when you take your foot off the gas.

Toyota’s idea of ​​postponing the energy of the internal combustion engine “for later” still stands for higher efficiency. With Highlander, we kept consumption to eight liters with a little foresight. Good job on such a big car. A smaller Toyota RAV4 with hybrid technology a generation older drives more than nine. By the way, CO2 emissions of 160 g / km are lower than for the Škoda Kodiaq 4 × 4 with diesel.

It should be added that the Toyota hybrid is one of the last cars that is worth leaving in the family for as long as possible. Mechanically, they are almost unbreakably simple, the traction battery is covered by a ten-year warranty, and even if it fails afterwards, you will replace it with a spout. It is a good old type of NiMH, cheap for production and recycling. Today’s models cost around fifty to sixty thousand, which you will pay much earlier for servicing modern diesel.