Toyota’s slow-burn teaser campaign just took a sharp turn toward the real world. The company has finally dropped its first official photo and video of its upcoming SUV—and confirmed that the full reveal lands February 10. After months of speculation, patent sleuthing, and corporate breadcrumbs, we now have something resembling a shape. And that shape is unmistakably large.

Everything we’re seeing points to a three-row electric SUV, a long-promised piece of Toyota’s EV puzzle that now appears to be ready for primetime. The interior shots give the game away: a second row with captain’s chairs suggests either a six- or seven-seat layout, and the sheer amount of glass—thanks to a panoramic sunroof—makes this thing feel more family road-trip than futuristic pod.

Toyota’s designers haven’t been asleep at the wheel, either. A full digital gauge cluster sits ahead of the driver, while a big tablet-style infotainment screen dominates the center stack. USB ports tucked into the bases of the C-pillars hint at a vehicle that expects rear-seat passengers to be as plugged in as the powertrain. In other words, this is a modern, tech-forward hauler designed for people who actually use the third row.

But the real story is what this SUV is, not just what it looks like.

Back in 2021, Toyota showed off the bZ Large SUV concept—then called the bZ5X—a three-row EV that was supposed to be part of a massive 15-vehicle electric blitz. Since then, Toyota has quietly stepped back from the awkward “bZ” branding while reshuffling its EV strategy, but one thing has remained consistent: a big, U.S.-built, three-row electric SUV was always coming.

And this sure looks like it.

Patent images we uncovered earlier, especially of the concept’s rear end, line up eerily well with what Toyota just teased. The proportions, the body creases, and that wide rear light bar all match. Even the window shape—with its distinctive triangular base at the front—lines up with the filings. If this isn’t the production version of the bZ Large SUV, then Toyota has pulled off one of the most convincing misdirects in recent memory.

What Toyota hasn’t told us yet is the name—and that’s where things get spicy.

While industry insiders have been calling this thing the bZ5X for years, Toyota’s growing discomfort with the “bZ” label suggests something more familiar might be in the works. Enter Highlander.

Toyota already builds a wildly successful three-row crossover in the Grand Highlander, which absolutely crushed its shorter sibling last year. The standard Highlander’s sales fell more than 37 percent to just over 56,000 units, while the Grand Highlander surged nearly 91 percent to almost 137,000. That kind of split practically begs for a rethink—and electrifying the regular Highlander would be one way to do it.

An electric Highlander—or even something like a “bZ Highlander”—would make a lot of sense. Ford proved with the Mustang Mach-E that familiar nameplates can smooth the transition to electric, even when the vehicle underneath is something entirely new. Customers trust the Highlander name, and Toyota would be wise to lean on that goodwill as it tries to get conservative buyers comfortable with plugging in.

We already know this SUV will be built in Kentucky with batteries sourced from Toyota’s North Carolina facility, and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2026. The reveal next week in California should finally lock in the name, the specs, and just how serious Toyota is about re-entering the EV race it once helped invent—and then strangely abandoned.

So call it the bZ5X, the Grand Crown, or the Electric Highlander. What matters is that Toyota’s long-teased three-row EV is real, it’s coming, and it’s about to become one of the most important vehicles the company has launched in a decade.

And in a market where big electric family haulers are still thin on the ground, Toyota just showed up to the fight with something that actually looks ready to sell.

Source: Toyota