Named for “sun” and “earth”, the Subaru Solterra will go on sale starting next year.
We’re nearing the point where every automaker has at least one EV in their stable. On Tuesday, Subaru officially joined the club as it announced the Solterra, a compact crossover in the same sort of orbit as a Toyota RAV4, or slightly larger than a Crosstrek.
While the car’s entire form isn’t visible in their teaser image, if you’ve seen the Toyota bZ4X concept you have an idea what the Solterra will look like. That’s because the two automakers co-developed these vehicles, extending the partnership beyond the 86/BRZ — and pretty much to the exact opposite end of the automotive spectrum, no less. Instead of a rear-drive sports car, we’re looking at an all-wheel drive SUV built on what the company’s calling their “e-SUBARU Global Platform”.
Being a Subaru, we do expect the Solterra to carry some of the off-road lifestyle capability that its conventional counterparts manage. At the moment, though, neither Subaru nor Toyota have released exact specs on what their models can do in the real world. Power, range, charging times and general features will hopefully be available in the coming months.
The new Subaru Solterra should arrive by next summer (current bottlenecks notwithstanding). We should see an actual reveal sometime later this year, then pricing should be available just before the 2022 launch. When it does finally arrive, it seems like this model will take on not only its Toyota twin, but the new Nissan Ariya, Volkswagen ID. 4, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y as well.
