I just stoped by the dealers this AM with a friend, who is looking at a Tacoma and noticed a new HH had came in and it had new Hybrid badging on it.

Where the 'Limited' was on the front fenders is now a 'HYBRID' emblem with a little Blue line after it. The 'Limited' emblem was on the lower part of the rear door, just above the molding, similiar to where they are putting it on the new RAV4.

I would have preferred just the Hybrid Synergy Drive emblems as the new one looks a little cheap I think. Because of the different types of font used it looks more like an after thought. I think they did this because of the way Ford has badged the Hybrid Escape. I do like Ford's little green leaf.

 

Photo? i haven't seen this on Toyota's site.

My solution was the first generation "Hybrid' script badge from the Prius, plced on the left side (under "Highlander") - it balances nicely with the postage-stampo "HSE" blue badge.

 

I didn't get one, but will see if I can get back over there sometime this week. It looks almost like the HYBRID emblem used on the Hondas.

 

The '06 Prius has the same badging. Curious as to why change it. The Prius never had one on the sides but it does now.

 

I think it's because Ford did it on thiers and it's what all the people passing or next to you see... More advertising, just in case some one didn't know.

 

Some time back (6/9 months?) Toyota released some information they'd gathered from surveys and such that customers prefered distinctive badging of their HEVs to show they world that they were, indeed, driving hybrids.

I'm confident that this is Toyota's effort at accomplishing that.

 

All Toyota brand hybrids now have a "HYBRID" emblem in front of the front doors on both sides. You can see it (sort of) in some of the pics I took last Saturday at NAIAS.

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...7&postcount=33

 

When we pulled up to the dealer to get our Highlander I thought I saw our car from a distance. I quickly decided it wasn't ours because it had the badging on the side and I assumed it said "Limited" - which we didn't buy. When we got closer, it read "HYBRID". It was indeed our car! I know people in this thread tend not to like the new badging, but we love it. While we really like the form of the Highlander, we both thought Toyota should "advertise" the Hybrid option more on the Highlander. Just my two cents.

 

We just picked ours up last week -- we were delighted with the new badging, too. Although it's not the Synergy Drive badge like the one on the rear hatch, we were happy that our HiHy was more identifyable as a hybrid vehicle. JMHO