Hyundai Palisade Hybrid vs. Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid: Which One Should You Buy?

• The Palisade enters its second generation, adding a hybrid powertrain along with a slew of other changes.
• It's going up against one of our favorite SUVs, the Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid.
• These vehicles are both extra family-friendly, but which one is the better buy?

2nd place: Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid

Edmunds Rating: 7.8/10
The good: Maximum space and "Max"imum performance
The bad: Snoozer styling inside and out, moving seats

It was too hard to pick one good thing about the Toyota, so we're just going to go with a few. The Grand Highlander Hybrid (and the gas version for that matter) has one of the largest cabins and cargo areas of any midsize three-row SUVs. With all of the seats folded down, it has 97.5 cubic feet of cargo space, which beats the Palisade Hybrid's 86.7 cubic feet handily. If you are dead set against getting a minivan and want the most room, this should be the default choice.

However, where the Grand Highlander Hybrid surpasses its gas-only counterpart is under the hood, with two hybrid powertrains available. The first one focuses more on efficiency, offering up to 36 combined mpg for front-wheel-drive models (34 mpg with all-wheel drive). Then there's the Hybrid Max setup, which we have in our One-Year Road Test fleet and which we used for this comparison. It offers 27 combined mpg, but that's still well above the gas versions, and you also get a big boost in performance. At our track, it only took 6.1 seconds to sprint from 0 to 60 mph.

Finding areas in which the Grand Highlander Hybrid falls short is also tough, as it really nails many of the fundamentals with strong scores for comfort and technology. The areas where it falls behind the Palisade Hybrid have more to do with the Hyundai's strengths than the Toyota's deficiencies. But in this head-to-head matchup, those things matter. 

Where the Toyota really falls short against its new rival is in the looks department. Lined up alongside its new Hyundai counterpart, the Toyota looks (and feels) less expensive by comparison with its toned-down exterior styling and admittedly highly functional but drab interior. It's clear that Toyota chose function over form in this vehicle, but its competitor says, "Why not both?"

And though its cargo area is large, it lacks amenities. The second- and third-row seats have to be operated manually, and the mechanism to move the captain's chairs can be hard to use, so children or older passengers might have trouble sliding the seats out of the way to get to the third row. This also means that if you want to lower all of the seats to fit more cargo, you'll be walking around the vehicle a few times to get all of that done. In the Hyundai, since both of its rows are available with power adjustments, you can drop one or all of the seats from the cargo area with just the touch of a button.

1st place: Hyundai Palisade Hybrid

Edmunds Rating: 8.3/10
The good: Luxury-grade interior, lots of features
The bad: Could be more efficient

Similar to the Toyota, it was nigh impossible to pick just one good thing about the Palisade Hybrid, so we'll go ahead and cheat again. The first thing to mention about this vehicle is its showstopping interior. Our Calligraphy model is the top trim available, and its cabin wouldn't be out of place in a Genesis, Hyundai's luxury brand. The dashboard's design is "midcentury modern" inspired, and there isn't a sharp edge to be found anywhere; it looks like a piece of vintage furniture as much as it does a dashboard.

The Palisade Hybrid is also feature-rich compared to its competitors, even if you extend beyond the Toyota. Lower trim levels that we've driven still have materials and equipment that give the SUV even greater appeal. The Calligraphy has Nappa leather upholstery, heated and ventilated first- and second-row seats, heated third-row seats, an integrated dashcam, and power for all of the seats so they can be lowered or raised from the screen up front. And we can't forget the five-year/60,000-mile basic and 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranties backing it all up.

We were happy to find that the Palisade Hybrid solves the gas version's biggest problem: being too slow. In our testing, it took 8.8 seconds to get from 0 to 60 mph, but the hybrid completes the same sprint in just 7.4 seconds and feels much better to drive in the day-to-day. But its fuel economy tops out at 29 mpg combined for all-wheel-drive models, and in our time with it, the vehicle failed to hit that mark. (We were down around 26 mpg for the time we had it.)

But as far as cons go, that's the biggest of them. The fact that the Hyundai is similarly practical to the Toyota but doesn't sacrifice any style or creature comforts to do it gives it the win handily in this comparison. It's a worthy ascendant to the top of the midsize three-row category. But the Hyundai's reign may be short-lived, as we prepare for the arrival of a new challenger next year: the Kia Telluride, which will come with a hybrid version of its own. And that fight will also be worth the price of admission.