Toyota
The 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited is spacious and easy on fuel consumption.
Toyota
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The first wave of alternative-fuel vehicles wasn't exactly dog-friendly, starting with the two-seat Honda Insight that barely had room for a bag of groceries, much less a big dog.
The Toyota Prius added a hatchback and more room for everything, but the popular hybrid is still awfully small if you're planning a family road trip that includes the dog.
That's why dog lovers should welcome the newest wave of greener sport utilities, including a quartet of redesigned hybrids: the Toyota Highlander and the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner/Mazda Tribute cousins. They're all roomy and comfortable, are pricier than non-hybrid equivalents, but have cleaner engines that sip less gas.
I tested and liked them all, but I absolutely loved the biggest and most expensive of the bunch, the Highlander. (It was also the least fuel-efficient.)
Toyota's redesign for 2008 adds more usable cargo space. The third row of seating folds completely flat, and the second row almost flat, with a tiny gap between rows when the seats are folded down.
That gap, along with the $39,000 base price (for the well-equipped Limited I tested) was about the only fault I could find (Highlander hybrids start at $34,000). With gas prices continuing to climb, you can't beat a roomy SUV getting 25 mpg while powering up a steep grade at highway speeds.
