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WE’VE OWNED OUR NEW 2023 Toyota Highlander Hybrid for six weeks. The technology and features are breath-taking. Until now, both of our vehicles were 18 years old. I feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up in a time I do not recognize.
Here are some of the bells and whistles on our new SUV, and my evaluation of their usefulness. Please forgive me if some of this information isn’t accurate; I’m still learning about these features.
Automatic parking brake engagement and automatic headlight dimming. Every time we put the vehicle in park, it automatically activates the parking brake. At night, the headlights automatically dim if there’s oncoming traffic or if we’re following another vehicle. Both of these are useful but unnecessary. I know how to set the parking brake; I know how to dim the lights.
Blind spot monitor. This is one feature I really like. A yellow icon appears on our outside left or right mirror if there’s a vehicle in our blind spot on that side. When passing another vehicle, it confirms that I have gone far enough around the other vehicle to pull safely back to the right lane.
Cross-traffic alert. When I’m backing out of a driveway or out of a parking spot, there is both a visual and audible alarm if a vehicle or person is approaching. Nice, but not necessary.
Driving position memory. This feature automatically adjusts the driver’s seat and outside rearview mirrors to suit your preferences. Because of the chip shortage, we were given only one key. A second key will be sent to us at some indefinite future time. When my wife and I each have our own key, the driver’s seat and outside rearview mirrors will automatically go to the positions last used by the driver with that key. This seems like it’ll be useful.
Dynamic radar cruise control. As with any cruise control system, this keeps the vehicle at the desired speed. But the “dynamic radar” portion of this system automatically slows us down as we approach another vehicle. My complaint: It slows us down too soon. My daughter told me I should be able to adjust this distance. As soon as I activate my turn signal to move over to pass the slower vehicle, the speed picks up nicely. My plan: Set cruise control to 100 miles per hour and the vehicle will automatically adjust to the speed of traffic. My wife does not agree.
Eco Score. A few days ago, I must have hit the wrong button. The dashboard display behind the steering wheel now displays my Eco Score. My Eco Score has ranged from 30 to 80. There are blue and green bars that fluctuate. It also has display areas for starting, cruising and stopping. I don’t know what any of this means. Perhaps I am a terrible person because I don’t care about my Eco Score, but this seems entirely useless. I need to find out how to change the display back to something useful.
Keyless starting. We start the car by simply pushing a button on the dashboard. The key needs to be close by. This feature would be more impressive if I could leave the key in my pocket—but that doesn’t happen. Every time I leave the car, I pull out the key to lock it, and every time I approach the car, I pull out the key to unlock it.
Lane tracking assist. When there are white or yellow lines on the road, this is supposed to help keep me in my lane. If I get too close to either side of my lane, it gives my steering wheel a “gentle nudge” to keep the vehicle in the lane. If I begin to cross a white or yellow line, it emits three beeps. This feature turns off when I activate the turn signal.
Does it really keep me in my lane? I knew of only one way to find the answer: Take my hands completely off the steering wheel. So, of course, that’s what I did. It performed admirably. But after about 10 seconds, a message appeared telling me to put my hands on the steering wheel. Overall, I find these gentle nudges to be annoying. The steering wheel is constantly moving back and forth in my hands.
Outside mirror defogger. When we turn on the rear window defogger, the outside rearview mirror defoggers also activate. This should eventually clear snow, or perhaps even ice, off the outside mirrors. We park in a garage and rarely have fog or snow on our outside mirrors, but this could be useful at times.
Rearview camera. Is this feature now ubiquitous on new vehicles? I have found this helpful, especially when backing into a parking spot.
Remote vehicle starting. A few weeks ago, I received an email from Toyota reminding me that if I download its app, I can use it to start the car from my living room. This will allow me to warm up or cool down the interior before I get in. The small print says my vehicle will wirelessly transmit my location, driving and vehicle health data to Toyota “for internal research and data analysis.” Thanks, but I’ll pass.
Three driving modes. Instead of “normal” mode, I can select either “sport” or “eco.” I’m not sure what these other modes do for me. I asked the salesperson and he really had no idea. I would guess that, like me, nearly all owners of vehicles with this feature always use “normal.”
Warning messages. Once, when I started the vehicle, a message appeared, “Caution. Roads May Be Icy.” When it’s below freezing and there has been precipitation during the night, I know the roads may be icy. Apparently, others find it helpful to be reminded of that. I have no idea what other nuggets of wisdom the car may want to impart to me at some future time.
Meanwhile, I can easily think of three features that I’d like to have on our new vehicle.
With our new vehicle, we took our 19-year-old granddaughter and my 95-year-old mother on a road trip to Colorado’s Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. The latter has perhaps 100 miles of roads and there’s nary a guard rail in sight. Frequently, the shoulder is only a few feet wide and going off the edge means tumbling hundreds of feet to a certain death. Yet there are almost no traffic fatalities because people know their lives depend on being alert.
Many of the features on our new vehicle enable or even encourage inattentive driving. I wonder what would happen if we outlawed all of these features, and by edict also removed all airbags and seat belts. Is it possible the number of accidents would go down because people would know that if they were in an accident, they would likely die? I would be in favor of this except I know careless drivers would kill not just themselves, but also many innocent people.
Our new vehicle cost $47,210, including tax and registration. My wife and I are frugal. We are also careful drivers. If Toyota offered the same vehicle—but with none of the above features—for $10,000 less, that’s the model we would have chosen.
Larry Sayler is the only person with a Wharton MBA who also graduated from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Clown College. Earlier in his career, he served as CFO for three manufacturing and service organizations. For 16 years before his retirement, Larry taught accounting at a small Christian college in the Midwest. His brother Kenyon also writes for HumbleDollar. Check out Larry’s earlier articles.
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Re safety features:
One of the 1st professor of traffic studies was Smeed.
He collected stats on traffic deaths from
many countries, all the way back to the invention of the automobile.
This showed that under an enormous range of conditions, the number of deaths in a country per year is given by a simple formula:
number of deaths equals .0003 times the two-thirds power of the number of people times the one-third power of the number of cars.
This formula is known as Smeed’s Law. He published it in 1949, and it was still valid 57 years later (2006 article — still valid now?).
It is, of course, not exact, but it holds within a factor of two for almost all countries at almost all times.
It is remarkable that the number of deaths does not depend strongly on the size of the country, the quality of the roads, the rules and regulations governing traffic, or the safety equipment installed in cars.
Smeed interpreted his law as a law of human nature. The number of deaths is determined mainly by psychological
factors that are independent of material circumstances.
People will drive recklessly until the number of deaths reaches the maximum they can tolerate.
When the number exceeds that limit, they drive more carefully. Smeed’s Law merely defines the number of deaths that we find psychologically tolerable.
Actually, Larry, there IS a Toyota SUV for around $8,000 less that has some of the above features, but not all. It’s called the Venza and we just bought one last week.
We test-drove multiple Highlanders but were scared off by the price. Then my wife spotted a blue 2023 Venza on the lot and fell in love. We test-drove it and discovered we liked it even better than the Highlander, not least because it’s built on a Lexus chassis. We’ve driven nothing but Lexus for 15 years, so the handling felt totally familiar. We put a deposit down on an incoming base-model Venza for around $36K and it was delivered about ten days later. We took it home for just over $40K including the whopping 9.5% Washington and local sales taxes, and an extra service package we ordered (free maintenance at the dealership for seven years).
We had never considered buying a new car. It’s usually economic idiocy when you can get the same car used for a whole lot less. But today, you can’t. Due to the unavailability of new cars, the used-car market has gone insane — some used models from 2020 cost more than their 2023 MSRP. A guy actually drove up from Oregon last year to buy my battered 2004 camper van for two-thirds of the original purchase price. So with that silly money in hand, we took the plunge.
I’m ecstatic that my wife can go out to the Chinese grocery stores an hour away wrapped in the latest safety and collision technology. She loves the blind-spot camera, the backup camera and the “gentle reminders.” The only feature we really miss that our old Lexus has but the basic Venza doesn’t is the driving position memory. Not having the one-button repositioning to readjust the seat and wheel — I can’t even get into the driver’s seat after she’s used it — does make me a bit crazy. But I wouldn’t pay $8K extra for it.
My favorite feature? The car audio system plays all my music straight off my iPhone. My CDs are long gone thanks to iTunes. Now I just push the Shuffle button on the phone app and the car wraps me in the Clancy Brothers and Nat King Cole.
Let’s have fun on the roads with our new toys, Larry. Thanks for the article.
The Venza is a very nice car but it is smaller than the Highlander. Depending on the number of kids or grandkids and your activities, the Highlander is a better choice and worth the extra 8k.
Yes, the Highlander is eight inches longer and three inches wider, it weighs 300-400 pounds more, and it has a third passenger row.
But our typical passengers are the same as Larry’s — a teenager and a senior citizen — and my wife is more comfortable driving a slightly less weighty car.
As the song says, “Hats off to Larry”! You made the move! Been dreaming of a new Highlander Hybrid for a while, but our 12 year old Highlander and our 19 year old Accord refuse to give us any reasons to upgrade! Maybe next year… Just wondering how the purchase experience went and if the promised MPG is real. Just saw a new arrival at my local dealer with a supplementary sticker of dealer ‘add-ons’ of over $4k (very necessary stuff like ‘dent protection’, ‘appearance protection’, ‘value package’, and even ‘running boards’!). Can’t blame them for trying…
You can read about Larry’s purchase experience here:
https://humbledollar.com/2023/03/driving-me-crazy/
I so don’t want to have to buy a new car. I want untinted windows, a CD player, and a radio where the buttons don’t move around on a touch screen that doesn’t respond with gloves on. I don’t want to manage software downloads, have to go to a dealership for service, have to battle a steering system that nudges me, or listen to constant beeps because another vehicle is near a blind spot. And as for going electric, I can pump a tank of gas in under five minutes. How am I going to recharge on a multi hour drive, especially if stuck in a major traffic jam?
I have a 2015 Highlander with the same features. LOVE them all!!! Best is the dynamic radar cruise control. My husband and I used to argue about whether he was tailgating. No more — now, the car decides!
Great discussion. I’m a believer of paying attention when you’re driving so I’m a bit turned off by all the related gadgetry that I’m pretty sure would be quite pricey to replace. All the processors in your car are expensive to replace, especially the main unit (if that’s still a thing). Geez, you have to have your “system” recalibrated when you replace the windshield. And if that part of the windshield gets covered with snow or dirt, the system deactivates (need to fix that issue). Still, I do understand that the one time it saves you from a deadly incident, it’s all gold.
And by the way, if you don’t start your newer make of car say every 20-30 days, the electronic gadgetry will drain your battery.
We’ve been Honda owners, new and used, for decades. Not too happy with the turbocharged engine issues with the 2018 CRV and how that was handled. Surprise! Had to replace the injectors at 60,000 miles (!?). Wouldn’t be related to the gas in the oil problem by any chance? Fortunately (?) we begrudgingly bought the 3rd party warranty upfront so that injector cost was mostly covered. In contrast, my well maintained 2011 Crosstour is loved and still runs and looks like a champ.
Best standard feature (especially newer cars): rear view camera with a large viewing screen and guidance lines.
Biggest useless standard feature(on vehicles I’d be interested in): paddle shifters.
Best option to add (3rd party for greater distance): remote start with fob feedback to confirm start, auto shutoff in 20 (?) minutes. These have been helpful in many different situations, especially for my wife and daughters (parking lots at malls at night, for example).
WeatherTech mats are great too and less expensive than dealer pricing. Sure does keep the carpet a lot cleaner and no wear.
I am driving a Subaru Forester with similar features and have similar complaints. Something as simple as figuring out how to set the date and time on the dash clock required resort to a YouTube video as the owners manual was too large and mostly incomprehensible. I get the idea of safety, but accessing these features and understanding what they do and how they work requires a lot of work. Wait until you have to change the battery in your key fob – I recommend YouTube, or a teenager if you own one.
Subaru claims to be super safe, but the touch screen cannot be read in sunlight, the buttons move around, and unresponsive to gloves. At least in the 2014 to 2020 models.
I recently watched a documentary about Henry Ford where he did not want to move on from the Model T (think manual crank start). He thought the updates of the day (suspension, hydraulic brakes, etc) would increase cost and reliability. He was right technically…
While some of the new safety features are desirable, I wish more of the frivolous doodads were optional.
My 2013 Subaru has few of the silly things and suits me fine. My wife’s 2019 Toyota, on the other hand, has myriad features neither one of us has figured out to this day. The owner’s manual and other booklets make up a packet over 3″ thick.
I bought a new Highlander a year ago and am still learning about features and settings. I have learned much more from a Toyota owners forum than from either the dealership or Owner’s Manuals. https://www.toyotanation.com/forums/highlander-forum.207/
GREAT suggestion. Thank you. I did not know such a group existed.
The one thing about these new vehicles is the safety equipment such as electronic traction control and electronic stability control will prevent accidents. And my advice is join us in the 21st century – streaming music via bluetooth in your vehicle is quite simple, you can even build your own playlists on your smartphone and if you happen to subscribe to Amazon Prime it’s included. You should have a free 90 day trial of SiriusXM as well, worth trying.
Maybe I’m nitpicking, but all the safety equipment in the world will not prevent all accidents. Within a week of purchasing a 2015 vehicle with EyeSight (automatic braking), a deer ran out in front of us. The vehicle may have stopped itself and we were not injured, but the damages were in the thousands and it took 3 months to repair because parts were unavailable.
The cross traffic alert is awesome and very necessary, IMO. With so many SUV’s and big trucks on the road, when backing out of parking spaces it impossible to see around them. The alert works great by letting you know if it is safe to back up.
Regarding the keyless starting, you should not have to take it out of your pocket to start the car, or lock/unlock the doors. When you approach the car, pull the handle and the door will sense your key and unlock it. The same for starting the car. When leaving the car, touch the notch on the handle and it locks the door.
Finally, remote vehicle starting may be advantageous, but I suspect many who use it on cold days run the car way too long, which isn’t good for the engine and wastes gas unnecessarily.
I want a new gadget that dims the headlights automatically of the oncoming traffic.
Just as I don’t want a “smart” house I don’t want a “smart” car. I’m glad to hear you have to specifically allow Toyota to collect your data, although I wonder whether that’s really true. My car is a 2007 Camry Hybrid with none of the added features you list, and I would really like the back-up camera, the blind spot monitor and especially the cross-traffic alert. There are all too many hulking SUVs in my part of the world, which makes backing a sedan out of a parking spot a gamble.
Every year you read or hear about a toddler left in a hot car by a preoccupied or forgetful parent. Wonder if these cars have alarms for Moms and Dads to prevent this sad occurrence. Would be a great option.
Great idea! I want to believe that this sensing feature could be similar to that of disabling the passenger airbag when an “underweight” item is placed on the seat. Seems like a camera system could also be utilized.
Agree – how strange there is now every kind of sensor except one that indicates the car is occupied when you walk away from it, maybe beeping the horn or calling your phone?
Great features for the first owner. As one who keeps vehicles for the long term, I have concerns about how long this teck will last when the vehicle gets older. I can do alot of repairs on my own, but when these items go bad, one could be in for expensive repairs. The cost of new vehicles – wow….$47K! But hey, if you got the money, enjoy:)
Yes, $47K is outrageous – more than our first house. But we were glad to get the vehicle, even at that price.
If you did not see it, you might want to skim my HD article from a month ago that tells what we went through to get it.
https://humbledollar.com/2023/03/driving-me-crazy/
That’s cheap nowadays. 47k
We tend to buy older vehicles and keep them for a long time (currently driving a 2002 and 2005 and have no plans to replace them, they are doing quite well, especially the 2002 Honda Accord), so I’ve wondered how long it will be until we have these fancy features.
I did borrow a car the other day and it has lots of cameras on it, and so instead of just displaying a rear view camera, it synthesizes an overhead view of the car and makes it look like there is a drone overhead so I can see all sides of the car very intuitively and no fish-eye perspective problems from typical rear view cameras.
A college professor of mine who works in various safety areas used to say the best way to get people to drive safely is remove all air bags, seat belts, etc and have mandatory spears that stick out of the steering wheel pointing at the driver.
He used to talk about how the number of accidents went up after seat belts were invented. Fewer fatalities, but more crashes.
What! no Apple Play? I wish my 2014 Mercedes had that, they do now. I can still use my iPhone to listen to any music I want through the car speakers. Can’t say I’ve used a CD more than a few times in the last nine years.
The ECO measures your driving efficiency. In my car with ECO on when you stop at a light it shuts the engine down and restarts when you take your foot off the break. Supposed to save gas, but I agree it’s pretty annoying and useless.
The sport mode is a different matter. It greatly changes your acceleration. I assume by electronically change gears, but I’m not a car guy. I found it accidentally after I had the car six months. It’s great for fast – really fast – acceleration like merging on a highway or passing on a two lane road.
I once had fun with it.
I was stopped at a light and a young guy in a Mustang pulls along side, starts revving his engine and looking at this old guy in his sedan. I couldn’t resist and touched the sport button. When the light changed I left him in the dust. Yes, childish, but that was the point, it felt good for a block or two.
Sport mode is also good for quickly getting to 115 mph on a Montana highway before your wife wakes up.
Toyota Hybrids all shut the engine off when not needed, especially when at a standstill, it will even shut off when coasting downhill. The driving mode basically changes the shift points. The ECO mode also reduce the heater/AC loads which are all electric. My experience is the ECO mode can add 3 to 5 MPG mine is always on except when leaving sports cars at the light – great fun! And his Toyota does have Apple Play.
Why do you find it annoying that the car turns off when you’re stopped? My 2007 Camry Hybrid has always done that, and I’d just as soon save the gas. It restarts with no lag but perhaps that’s because it’s a hybrid and the battery kicks in first.
I’ve never driven a hybrid, but with a large six cylinder engine the whole car shakes when the ECO goes on and off.
Now it stopped working so I’ll just leave it. I already had to replace the separate battery that runs it.
a laugh in the morning is 1/2 the reason I subscribe.
Who comes up with these bells and whistles on new cars? If they were correctly designed, you would not need a back up camera. How can a remote start be energy efficient, idling the motor to heat or cool the interior? What happens if the battery wears out in the key? Yet another expense that could be eliminated using a regular metal key. .. And no CD player after spending a kings ransom for the vehicle. Good thing you did not get the app for Toyota to collect your data. Toyota should send you a check for the inconvenience of just one key. I can hear the screams now when the only key goes through the washing machine… I still can not understand why the transmission dip stick was eliminated. Did you check to see if there was one added by mistake?
Back up cameras are awesome and the new alert systems are great. What correct design would eliminate the need for a back-up camera if your have pickup trucks or huge SUV’s on either side of you, and you need to back up blindly?
Regarding the key, the battery lasts a long time, and it alerts you when power is low. It costs a few bucks to replace, which you can do on your own. So much better than having to stick a key in the door or ignition. Also, my Lexus SUV has a metal key inside the key fob should the electronics fail
When my car tells me the battery in the key fob needs replacing, I take it (and the spare) to my friendly neighborhood auto mechanic, where I have been taking my cars for decades, and they replace the batteries for a pittance.
What’s a CD? 🙂
The battery in my 2020 Subaru Outback was easy to change and I was warned that it was low well in advance. I personally love not having to take the key out of my pocket when I get into the car.
Back-up cameras save lives.
Ever have the parking valet chase after you for the key?
I will answer your question about eco, normal and sport modes. Shame on your dealer for not
knowing. In eco mode you will get 7-10% better gas mileage but poorer acceleration. In sport mode you will get poorer gas mileage (not sure how much – I never use it) but better acceleration. I always use eco mode.
With your key in your pocket you can lock your car just pressing the special part of the door handle. You can unlock by just pulling the handle. It sounds like you may need to change a setting in order to do this. If you like it the way things are then leave it this way.
Donna, thank you – for your comment and explanation! I will try this. The owners’ manual, hundreds of pages long, probably tells me this.
yes, but as you know, going thru the damned thing is as boggling as fixing a computer problem. I have so many ideas for Toyota ( I own 2 )—I wonder if they ever use groups of owners for feedback.
Be careful what you wish for. Imagine if you didn’t need to take out your key and hit a button to unlock the doors, instead simply needing to be close by. Now imagine you’re parked at a diner, and you’ve chosen a parking spot right in front of the booth where you’ll be eating. You’re so close that you can’t lock the car, it would take a minute for you to get back to the car if you needed to, and anyone familiar with this “feature” knows it.
Currently, Hyundais and Kias are difficult to insure because of the Kia challenge from TikTok, showing how easy they are to steal. If the feature you asked for existed, I would imagine it wouldn’t be long before we started seeing Toyota challenges on TikTok.
My 2007 Camry Hybrid has keyless doors, but I have never worried about them. You have to be really close for the key to activate the door, like standing right next to the door lock.
Agree about some of the annoyances, however I find the cross-traffic alert very useful in parking lots as I am invariably surrounded by 28-foot-long pickup trucks so important to suburbanites, and so many people feel it is no problemo to drive 35 through crowded parking lots. Also, your Eco Score will eventually be useful to Big Brother to limit your travels to save the planet, similar to those gadgets the insurance companies offer (so far) to monitor your safe driving habits for a discount.
To end my rant, the haptic “buttons” are a safety concern and should be outlawed, even if Gen Z gamers think they are just the coolest. People should be able to drive while keeping their eyes on the road – just as bad as texting “accidents”.
I bought a new Toyota pickup with all the bells and whistles at the beginning of Covid replacing my 2002 one. The old one was a stripped 2WD that I paid 13K, the new one 35K. I live in NH and at 62 had decided it was time to no longer load 10 cinder blocks in the bed for added traction each time it snowed. Although the recommendation is to buy a 3 year old vehicle to avoid the initial depreciation used pickups hold onto their value, and I figure if this truck lasts for 20 years as expected this will be the last one I will buy. Even though at this point I don’t need the blind spot monitor, cross traffic alert, and lane tracking assist (my wife might argue that point) I figured that these will be valuable as I get older.
You will get less horn honking when you have a blind spot monitor.
I agree with a lot buy oh my God I need Driving position memory! My wife and I are very different builds and many times I all but crush my knee on the steering wheel getting into our 2018 accord after she has driven
I’m surprised you can’t just keep your key in your pocket for the keyless start. I can certainly do that with my 2006 Honda. That’s the idea, no fuss, no muss.
Doug and others, I appreciate the comments telling me I don’t have to push the button on the key fob to lock or unlock the doors. Being more of a 20th century person, I assumed I did. Thanks for all of the great information.
My 2022 Toyota Camry Hybrid unlocks when I touch the door handle with the key fob in my pocket and the car will start with the key in my pocket. Most dealers have a “car tech” rep who can answer all those types of questions.
I’m pretty sure his point wasn’t that the car can’t start with the key in his pocket, but rather that it’s not necessarily an awesome feature due to the fact that he still has to take out his key to unlock the car door and get in the vehicle. If the key’s now out and in his hand, why is it so awesome that he can now put it back in his pocket to start the car? If his key’s out to unlock the door, he might as well also insert it into the ignition old-school style. It’s more of a bell-and-whistle than a useful time-saver. I think that’s what he’s meaning.
Correct. That is exactly my thinking.
Larry, I agree with most of your points but like Doug Kaufman above, I am not understanding why you have to take your key out of your pocket. I recently traded a 2015 Volvo station wagon on a 2023 Honda minivan. My wife has a 2019 VW. On all of these vehicles, some kind of sensor knows when I approach the vehicle and as I put my hand on the door handle, it unlocks. I never have to take my key out of my pocket — just have to make sure that I have it there. And all of them have a small button on the outside handle that I just need to push to lock the vehicle. The Honda also has a feature that I de-programmed that would automatically lock it when I walked a certain distance away from the vehicle. However the dealer pointed out that would mean the van was always self-locking even in my garage. Even at age 74, I can still remember to lock the van by pushing the button. So in conclusion I would suggest you delve into your owner’s manual or stop back at the Toyota dealership to see if their vehicles don’t in fact have the same unlocking/ locking feature that Honda, VW and Volvo have.
These days you really do have to go to school on your new car. I have an Audi Q3 that we got in 2020. I sat in the parking garage for awhile and ran through the YouTube videos on the app so that I’d understand how everything worked. Then I barely drove anywhere for months because of the pandemic, and I forgot most of what I’d learned.
One thing that was new to me was not ever having to turn the headlights on or off. This is fine and cool and all, but I worry that if I’m driving a rental car on vacation, I’m going to forget that I need to do something about the lights and will either drive around in the dark or kill the battery because I forget to turn the lights off.
My car also kills the engine when I’m stopped at a light to save energy. I’ve adjusted to this, but it still weirds out my husband when he drives it.
Our 2005 Toyota turns the headlights off automatically once the car is parked, I would assume all modern cars do that now.