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According to Automotive News, these models will provide more comfortable third-row seating than the automaker’s current offerings, the Toyota Highlander and Lexus RX L, but without buyers having to move up to the large body-on-frame Toyota Sequoia, or the Lexus GX and LX. The publication said the Grand Highlander will go on sale in mid-2023, and the TX, which will be based on it, will follow about six months later.
Automotive News said it heard about the two vehicles from “a source” and that a Toyota spokesperson refused to comment on future products.
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![First Look: 2023 Lexus RZ 450e]()
First Look: 2023 Lexus RZ 450e
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SUV Review: 2022 Lexus UX 250h AWD
But a year ago, Toyota did officially announce an investment of US$803 million and an additional 1,400 new jobs at its Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana (TMMI) plant in Princeton, Indiana. The investment was “in preparation to introduce two all-new, three-row SUVs,” and further, “only one will bear the Toyota name… the other will officially introduce the Lexus line to Toyota Indiana.” Both will offer seating for up to eight passengers.
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These SUVs – for the sake of simplicity, let’s say they will be the Grand Highlander and TX – will also contain “cutting-edge technology,” Toyota said. This includes a “semi-automated driving system – which will allow for hands-free driving in certain conditions – a remote parking system allowing the driver to park and unpark from outside the vehicle using a smartphone, and a digital key that turns a user’s smartphone into their key and allows them to share it digitally.”
The press release also stated that this new vehicle lineup “will allow us to continue our work with electrification,” which we’re naturally assuming means that, like the current Highlander and RX, the new Grand Highlander and TX will be available with a hybrid powertrain. Toyota recently filed the name TX550h+ with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and we’re guessing that plus on the end indicates a plug-in hybrid.
TMMI currently produces the Highlander and Highlander Hybrid, the Sienna minivan – which comes only as a hybrid now – and the Sequoia. It has the capacity to build more than 420,000 vehicles per year.
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