Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander: What’s The Difference?
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Three-row SUVs are all the rage these days as families are traveling on the road more than ever. With so many excellent choices on the market, making a decision can be excruciating. Even if you’ve narrowed your choices down to a Kia Telluride and Toyota Highlander, it can be difficult to figure out which is best for you. Luckily, you need look no further! We’ve got all you need to know to find the difference between a Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander.
A Brief Overview
There’s no wrong choice here with these two great vehicles, so it really depends on what you prioritize. The 2021 Kia Telluride is certainly the cheaper option and has slightly better technology and cargo space. Meanwhile, the 2021 Toyota Highlander offers incredible gas mileage and performance and is a little bit safer, too. Either way, these are both top-tier SUVs with plenty to offer.
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Specs
Both of these three-row SUVs have great engines, making performance an incredibly close category in the Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander race. However, due to the options provided with the Toyota Highlander, we have to give it the crown in this aspect. You see, the 2021 Toyota Highlander’s base engine is an extremely powerful V6 engine that can generate up to 295 horsepower. This is absolutely top of the line for this type of car, but the Kia Telluride’s engine does come close. The 2021 Telluride comes standard with a 3.8 Liter V6 engine with 291 horsepower. The difference here is quite small, so if you plan to go with the original Highlander engine, this likely won’t factor much into your decision. Where the Highlander shines, however, is its option of replacing the original engine with a gas/electric hybrid, which only gets 243 horsepower but comes with a slew of modern technological changes.
The Kia Telluride may be slightly edged out in performance, but it wins in the cargo space department. When all seats are down, you can use up to 87 cubic feet of space. Sometimes, though, you want to keep the seats up so that you can seat a lot of passengers. Even in these situations, you’ll have 21 cubic feet of space behind the third-row seat, which should fit plenty of equipment. The Toyota Highlander, on the other hand, isn’t quite as spacious. It gets close with roughly 84 cubic feet when the seats are down and 16 cubic feet behind the third-row seat, but it just can’t quite get there. The third-row seat cargo space is actually significant here, as the Telluride has almost a third more space than the Highlander.
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Safety and Reliability
We know that safety is incredibly important when it comes to any vehicle, but it tends to be one of the main priorities for shoppers looking to buy a three-row SUV. Before we compare Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander in this regard, it’s worth noting that both are highly rated for their reliability and will treat you and your passengers well. With that being said, there are some differences between the two worth discussing.
The Kia Telluride is a well-equipped vehicle full of excellent safety features in all its trims, such as pedestrian detection, collision avoidance assist (which helps keep an eye on rear cross-traffic and warn you about any detected problems), automatic emergency braking, and driver attention warning. A rear-vision camera is another great addition to the Telluride’s safety suite. While all this is close to the Highlander, it falls just slightly short of meeting the same level. The 2021 Toyota Highlander has been granted a brand new, state-of-the-art Toyota Sense 2.5+ system that was designed from the ground up to promote safety. This includes lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise control, to name a few features.
Another difference between these two SUVs when it comes to safety is their rating from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. Both have high ratings, but the 2021 Highlander earned the highest honor of the Top Safety Pick+ award, whereas the 2021 Telluride only earned the Top Safety Pick award. Again, each of these vehicles will keep you safe and sound, but the Highlander wins out in the end.
Gas Mileage
A lot of the differences we’ve listed in the Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander debate have been relatively minor, but one major one is in fuel economy. Both of the Highlander’s engines blow the Telluride out of the water in this department, with the base engine returning an estimate of 21 miles per gallon in the city and 29 miles per gallon on the highway, and the gas/electric hybrid getting 35 miles per gallon for both city and highway driving, which is exceptional.
The Telluride’s gas mileage certainly isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere near as good as the Highlander’s. With the Telluride’s engine, you can expect to get about 20 miles per gallon in the city and 26 miles per gallon on the highway.
Technology
The technology in both of these vehicles is excellent, but the Telluride just barely has one over on the Highlander in this portion of the Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander competition. The Telluride includes an eight-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and a six-speaker audio system in every single one of its trims, and that’s not all. You’ll also enjoy rear passenger air conditioning, rear occupant alert, and keyless entry. The Highlander comes close to this with its own eight-inch touchscreen equipped with Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and Alexa in all of its trims, as well as three-zone automatic climate control and LED headlights. At the end of the day, it really comes down to what technology you personally want in your car to decide which you should get, but the Telluride has a more robust suite of features.
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Price
Price points are another area that the Kia Telluride comes out on top in the Kia Telluride vs. Toyota Highlander comparison. A 2021 Kia Telluride’s base trim costs roughly $32,000, which is much cheaper than the original 2021 Highlander’s cost of about $36,000. Of course, it’s worth thinking about the money you’d save over the years in gas costs with the Highlander’s excellent fuel economy, but the difference between their costs is still rather large.
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