CARMEL, Calif. — Like its platform mate, the redesigned 2022 Tundra pickup, the Toyota Sequoia giant SUV was exhibiting its age in unflattering methods, a sufferer of the Japanese model’s extraordinarily lengthy product cycle for its body-on-frame gentle vehicles.
Its final full redesign had occurred in 2008, within the midst of the Nice Recession and a lifetime in automotive phrases. Its gasoline financial system, towing capability and trip and dealing with have been all largely leftovers from that period. There was a minor freshening in 2018, however even that was trimming on an SUV serendipitously named after considered one of Earth’s oldest dwelling organisms — an enormous hulk of a tree.
Enter then the redesigned 2023 Sequoia, with a long-overdue infusion of latest expertise, practicality and refinement and arriving as extra clients demand crossovers and SUVs with helpful third-row seating and towing capability. Toyota is assured that this bottom-to-top overhaul, together with a brand new hybrid powertrain, will restore a few of the market stature the Sequoia had misplaced over time to phase heavyweights together with the Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Ford Expedition.
Aiming the SUV at older millennial and youthful Technology X clients with households, Toyota expects annual U.S. quantity to strategy 30,000. Gross sales are more likely to be strongest within the “smile states” — the East and West coasts plus Southern states.
“We’re undoubtedly going to see a bump, and I believe we have undoubtedly introduced a product that I believe will warrant that larger quantity,” Joe Moses, Toyota North America’s basic supervisor of auto advertising and communications, vehicles and SUVs, informed Automotive Information on the sidelines of an occasion right here. “Fairly frankly, there would possibly even be just a little bit extra there, however we have set our targets on about triple the place we’re in the present day.”
Two years after its 2000 debut, the Sequoia peaked at simply over 70,000 U.S. gross sales. The final two years, beset by COVID-19 and the microchip scarcity, weren’t sort to the getting old SUV, with U.S. quantity totaling 7,364 in 2020 and eight,070 in 2021. Final 12 months, it was second from final within the giant SUV phase, in response to the Automotive Information Analysis & Knowledge Heart, forward of solely the Jeep Wagoneer, which returned to the market in late 2021 after a three-decade absence.
“Sequoia will probably be a terrific product for us,” stated Doug Eroh, president and basic supervisor of Longo Toyota in El Monte, Calif., the nation’s top-selling Toyota seller. Eroh stated the redesigned SUV ought to “gasoline a few of our year-over-year progress” within the second half of 2022, given how low present Sequoia gross sales are.
He stated his dealership had already “obtained a number of dozen new orders from our clients” because the Sequoia was revealed this week. “Our clients are excited in regards to the product and particularly the hybrid powertrain,” Eroh stated. “The prospect of getting a high-quality Toyota full-size SUV with an electrified powertrain could be very interesting to our company.”
Driving on Toyota’s new F1 international light-truck platform, the Sequoia is bigger and way more refined. It touts elevated driver-assistance and expertise options, towing capability and gasoline financial system over the present model.
The redesigned Sequoia, set to reach in dealerships late this summer time, was proven this week to journalists right here. The SUV will come normal with the model’s new iForce Max hybridized powertrain, with a 48-hp electrical motor, which debuts this 12 months on the Tundra full-size pickup and is engineered particularly to enhance energy and torque as a substitute of simply gasoline financial system.
The iForce Max produces a most 437 hp and 583 pound-feet of torque from its twin-turbo V-6 engine and 10-speed computerized transmission, and the brand new mixture will give the Sequoia an improved most towing ranking of 9,000 kilos, 22 % greater than with the present model.
Although gasoline financial system scores for the 2023 Sequoia will not be accessible for months, Toyota guarantees they are going to be significantly improved from the present 4×4 model’s 14 mpg mixed determine and extra aggressive with phase leaders, together with the Yukon (17 mpg mixed) and Expedition (19 mpg mixed).
Contained in the cabin, the Sequoia receives main upgrades, highlighted by a normal 8-inch or optionally available 14-inch infotainment contact display. Each screens run the brand new Toyota Audio Multimedia system that was developed in-house in Texas and is being rolled out throughout the model over the following a number of years.
Toyota additionally paid shut consideration to the Sequoia’s third-row seating, including a recline function in addition to a sliding operate that permits these seats to maneuver fore or aft as much as 6 inches.
Toyota is also introducing what it is calling an adjustable cargo shelf system. With the third-row seats folded down, a detachable shelf might be set in quite a lot of positions, the model defined. The shelf additionally offers the Sequoia a flat, if raised, load flooring behind the primary row, with all rear seats folded down, that gives further utility.
When it comes to security, all variations of the 2023 Sequoia will come normal with Toyota Security Sense 2.5, which incorporates dynamic cruise management, lane-departure alert with lane-centering, a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection, blind-spot monitoring, entrance and rear parking help and rear cross-traffic alert.
Toyota is recalibrating the Sequoia’s trim stroll partly to fill a few of the void left by the Land Cruiser’s departure this 12 months, slotting the brand new Capstone trim above the earlier Platinum prime grade. Capstones may have normal 22-inch chrome rims and have walnut inside inlays and a number of exterior chrome accents, in addition to normal energy working boards.
The redesign permits the Sequoia to spice up its towing chops. An optionally available Tow Tech package deal, which incorporates digital aids to again up a trailer, is on the market throughout all trims and normal on TRD Professional and Capstone variations.
Pricing particulars weren’t introduced. Sequoia manufacturing is being moved this 12 months from Toyota’s meeting plant in Princeton, Ind., to its truck plant in San Antonio, the place it’s going to share an meeting line with the Tundra.