The Auto Writer

Sequoia not dead yet.

I headed over to the Toyota pressroom site on Friday to find Toyota’s take on its latest recall, this one involving select Toyota Avalon and Lexus models, and was greeted by a terse message stating that the automaker is not discontinuing its big Sequoia SUV.

R.I.P. Sequoia?

Supposedly, rumors have cropped up recently that Toyota is discontinuing the model for any number of reasons including poor sales, recall issues, gas guzzling, etc.

But Toyota insists that it isn’t and posted the following to refute those rumors:

“Toyota denies any reports of the discontinuation of the Sequoia. For obvious competitive reasons, Toyota does not discuss future product plans. Sequoia continues to be a profitable, high-quality vehicle for Toyota and several years remain in the life of the current generation. Our focus remains on building our vehicles, including the Sequoia, with the highest possible quality.”

There you have it: those rumors have been laid to rest. Or have they? The 4WD Sequoia gets just 13 mpg city, 18 mpg highway or a combined 15 mpg, well below the numbers Toyota needs to get in order to help its fleet comply with federal corporate average fuel economy numbers for trucks.  Those numbers aren’t about to go away and the Tundra, the truck body which the Sequoia is based upon, is not living up to sales expectations.

Toyota Tundra

Due to be updated by 2014, the Tundra has trailed trucks from Ford, Chevrolet/GMC and Dodge badly even though the latest model is a huge improvement over the previous one.  Toyota has successfully taken on Detroit in all other vehicle segments, but winning the big truck and big SUV battle has been elusive.

Will the Sequoia go away? Probably. Or at least Toyota may rip a page from the Ford Motor Company playbook by shrinking the Sequoia, placing it on a car body and stuffing a small engine under the hood just as Ford has done with the Explorer.

Rumor City

In any case the rumors are likely to persist despite the Toyota denials. Toyota has been particularly tightlipped all year, following recalls involving millions of its vehicles and looming liability suits.