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Next Toyota Kluger has hybrid options
Nathan Ponchard
2026-07-06
WITH its US production source switching to an all-electric, fifth-generation model, Toyota Australia will soon announce what the 2027 version of its Kluger hybrid large SUV will be for this market.
So far, Toyota has simply confirmed that the “Kluger nameplate will continue for Australia in 2027” and that it will not be the soon-to-launch, fifth-generation BEV version – at least not yet – because it is currently not built in right-hand drive.
Production of the Highlander (the Kluger’s global nameplate) will shift from Toyota’s Princeton, Indiana plant (which has been building the Highlander/Kluger since 2007) to a re-tooled facility in Georgetown, Kentucky specifically for the new BEV generation.
Toyota Australia says it has enough stock of the existing Princeton-built Kluger hybrid to comfortably see out the remainder of 2026.
Speaking to GoAuto at a recent media event in Queensland, Toyota Australia vice president sales, marketing and franchise operations John Pappas confirmed that the “Kluger nameplate will keep going, and we’ll see basically what powertrain becomes available to us”.
"Then we’ll make the call based on that – what we take for our market.”
Mr Pappas and Toyota Australia senior manager product planning and pricing Ray Munday said they know what the 2027 Kluger is going to be, and Toyota Australia has previously said it is willing to source vehicles from China.
So will next year’s Kluger hybrid be the same SUV but imported from China? Or will the Kluger nameplate transition to a right-hand-drive version of the larger Grand Highlander, also built in Indiana in the US?
The fourth-generation XU70 Kluger has been produced at the GAC Toyota production facility in Guangzhou, China since late-2020, and it appears that will continue for now (there’s been no word yet on GAC Toyota building the new BEV).
If this factory is capable of producing right-hand-drive Kluger Hybrids, that could be a cost-effective solution for Toyota Australia.
A more appealing, though potentially more expensive option would be to engineer a right-hand-drive version of the Princeton-built Grand Highlander/Kluger for sale in Australia as this market's fifth-generation 2027 Kluger.
Perhaps tellingly, when speaking to Toyota executives, Mr Munday made a specific effort to point out that the new-generation BEV is not the only Highlander/Kluger built in North America.
“So that Grand Highlander, sorry, Highlander BEV is not the only Highlander product from North America – that’s (just) one product,” he said.
“Waiting to see what powertrain becomes available" from North America could also be referencing the two hybrid options associated with Grand Highlander/Kluger.
Launched in 2023 in North America, the Grand Highlander is essentially a stretched and widened regular Kluger – 150mm longer, 60mm wider and around 25mm taller, riding on a 100mm-longer wheelbase.
Featuring more formal but arguably more handsome styling, and a newer, more upmarket interior design, the Grand Highlander has been a resounding success in the US – taking over from its smaller sibling as Toyota’s main large SUV, achieving 136,801 sales in 2025 to outsell the regular Highlander/Kluger by almost three-to-one.
Powertrains are identical, meaning a 198kW 2.4-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder (now discontinued in Australia) or the same 184kW 2.5-litre petrol-electric hybrid four as our current Kluger Hybrid, driving through an ‘eFour’ AWD system.
North America also gets a flagship hybrid version of the 2.4-litre turbo-petrol engine, marketed as ‘Hybrid MAX’, which lifts combined power to 270kW while increasing torque to more than 500Nm – thereby becoming a ‘Performance Hybrid’ in Toyota Australia speak, much like the Tundra and new petrol-electric LandCruiser 300 hybrid.
Should the Grand Highlander become Australia’s fifth-generation Kluger – offered with both petrol-hybrid and turbo-petrol hybrid powertrains – it would give Toyota Australia blanket coverage of the medium-to-large SUV/4WD space, alongside the new RAV4 XSE and GR Sport plug-in hybrids.
There is a third option with Kluger, however – potential petrol-hybrid and plug-in-hybrid versions of the new Highlander BEV.
It is based on the same TNGA-K architecture as the fourth-gen Highlander/Kluger and Grand Highlander, so it has the hardware flexibility to accommodate future powertrains beyond pure electric.
But if that happens, it will be some time away, given the popularity of Grand Highlander and Toyota’s current insistence that the Kentucky-built, new-generation Highlander BEV will be an electric-only model.
With Toyota’s diesel-engined Prado selling up a storm (and the HiLux-based, Thai-built Fortuner now discontinued in this market), the monocoque-bodied Kluger hybrid fills a valuable niche as the direct petrol-electric rival to the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento and the like – achieving 8098 sales in 2025.
In around six months we will know for sure whether the 2027 Kluger is indeed a re-nameplated Grand Highlander, or a Chinese-manufactured version of the SUV we have been familiar with since 2021. Or perhaps something else entirely.