Subaru has given its first EV a name

WHEN it comes for a love of the outdoors, Subaru is right up there with the best of them – so quite fittingly, it has given its first electric car, a robust-looking compact crossover, a name that fits.

New Zealand is in line to see the Solterra, a tag that presents as a conjunction of the Latin for ‘Sun’ and ‘Earth’ and emphasise the car's environmentally friendly context.

The wait might be be too long. In addition to announcing this, with two images provisioned, Subaru has suggested first markets will receive the model in a year from now.

Cited markets including Japan, the United States, Canada, Europe and China. Subaru New Zealand is also pushing to be in the top tier.

The brand said it chose Solterra to show an appreciation of Mother Nature and to signal its intent to “further advance the form of coexistence with it, together with our customers, and to represent our commitment to deliver traditional Subaru SUV’s go-anywhere capabilities in an all-electric vehicle.”

The make’s first all-electric is on the dedicated e-Subaru Global Platform, which has been jointly developed with Toyota, which calls the same underpinning e-TNGA. Toyota plans six e-TNGA cars, the first of which will be drawn from a recently revealed concept, the BZ4X. That model is also destined to begin production in 2022. And, yes, Toyota New Zealand has put up a hand.

The brand remain mum about the powertrain type. Subaru has suggested the Solterra will have standard all-wheel drive, but how could it not? That’s a brand ethos down here. That likely means it will have front and rear electric motors. Battery capacity and range are unknown.

Subaru has offered that the underpinning enables the makes to roll out various types of EVs efficiently by combining multiple modules and components, such as the front, centre and rear of a vehicle.

The car has been designated as a fit into the ‘C’ class, the industry’s classification for a small but not-so-small model. The current Forester and Toyota RAV4 are essentially also C-rated.

“While the two companies have brought together their knowledge to create a completely new platform, Subaru have aimed to realize superior passive safety and vehicle stability, which Subaru has always been pursuing, also in this BEV dedicated platform,” a release from the brand says.

It says the collaboration doesn’t stop with the platform. Product planning, design and performance evaluation are also co-ordinated. All of which enforces the probability the end result products could well be as close as the 86 and BRZ sports cars are. 

Subaru offers: “In this development, the two companies combine their respective strengths, such as Subaru’s long-accumulated all-wheel-drive technology and Toyota’s outstanding vehicle electrification technology, to create a new SUV with attributes that only an all- electric vehicle can offer.”

It has enforced that Solterra is an addition rather than a replacement, and cites it will join all the current models presently in production. Nonetheless, Subaru is aiming for at least 40 percent of its global sales to be either electric or hybrid by 2030.