2024 Toyota Grand Highlander is a bigger, grander Highlander

CHICAGO — The 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander, which debuted Wednesday on the eve of the Chicago Auto Show, takes the body and bones of one of the Japanese brand's top-selling crossovers and super-sizes it to deliver a more comfortable and competitive family vehicle — at least without sliding rear doors.

The biggest feature of the Grand Highlander is its bigness, especially in the third row. Overall, the Grand Highlander is larger in every dimension compared with the Highlander, yet not quite as big as either the Toyota Sienna minivan or Toyota Sequoia body-on-frame SUV.

The Grand Highlander's third row features an additional 5.8 inches (14.7 centimetres) of legroom compared with the Highlander, 2.5 extra inches (6.3 cm) of shoulder room and more than an inch of extra headroom. With all the seats in use, there's an added 4.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row, which the brand says is now able to hold seven carry-on suitcases. With all second- and third-row seats down, the Grand Highlander boasts 97.5 cubic feet of cargo space, 16 percent more than the Highlander, though still below the Sienna and Sequoia.

Designed in the United States and manufactured in Toyota's plant in Princeton, Ind., the 2024 Grand Highlander comes equipped with a standard 2.4-litre turbocharged I-4 engine. Two optional hybrid powertrains are also available — one tuned for fuel economy and the other tuned for power and capable of delivering up to 362 hp and towing up to 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms).

In the cabin, seating for seven comes standard with second-row captain's chairs, with the option for a second-row bench available to raise capacity to eight occupants in certain configurations.

The Grand Highlander comes standard with a 12.3-inch touch screen running the brand's new Toyota Audio Multimedia system, which was developed in-house and works largely through voice prompts.

The Grand Highlander comes standard with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, a suite of upgraded safety and driver-assistance features including dynamic cruise control, lane keeping, automated headlights and a new system the brand calls Proactive Driving Assist. Toyota says that when certain "operating conditions are met, using the vehicle's camera and radar, this system provides gentle braking into curves or gentle braking and/or steering to help support driving tasks such as distance control between a preceding vehicle, pedestrian or bicyclist."

The Grand Highlander will be available in three trim levels, including XLE, Limited and Platinum, and standard all-wheel drive. Pricing was not released. The vehicle is expected to be in showrooms in the second half of the year.