Subaru’s previously announced electric SUV will be called Subaru Solterra. The car should appear on the market early next year, also in Europe.
The Subaru Solterra is the car announced in late 2020 as Subaru’s then-unnamed, electric SUV. If you look closely at the photos from that time, you will see many similarities with the Toyota bZ4X Concept presented later. That is no coincidence, because it is in fact the same car. As with the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GT86 – now GR86 – the two Japanese brands are therefore working together on this project.
Where Toyota describes its long-awaited electric newcomer as a RAV4-sized model, Subaru calls it a Forester-sized car. A medium-sized SUV, a car that in Europe formally falls into the so-called C-segment. This puts the Japanese newcomers on paper in the waters of cars like the Volkswagen ID4, Skoda Enyaq iV, Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, although we have not seen any specifications yet.
Subaru all-wheel drive
It is not always clear in these types of collaboration projects whether or not collaboration actually took place. According to Subaru, the electric platform is really developed by both brands. Subaru would use its extensive experience in the field of four-wheel drive, although that four-wheel drive with the electric Solterra is of course quite different from, for example, an Outback.
Sun and Earth
The name ‘Solterra’ is a combination of ‘Sol’ and ‘Terra’, sun and earth respectively. With this, Subaru wants to say, ‘to express appreciation for nature and to further deepen the cooperation with that nature and the relationship with that nature’. Nice and floaty. In concrete terms, it means that the electric Subaru must also be a real ‘go-anywhere vehicle’, in short, a car with which you can also go off the beaten track.
On sale in mid-2022
Subaru Solterra sales will start in mid-2022, Subaru reports. There is still a long way before that, so well before then we will undoubtedly get to see more of the car. Sales will start in Japan, the US, Canada, Europe and China and EV country the Netherlands is undoubtedly among the first recipients.