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Japan’s quirky 4x4 brand gets a helping hand from Toyota for its first EV

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Electrification represents a philosophical obstacle to some car manufacturers as well as a practical one. Subaru’s brand, for example, has long been built on tough, versatile family cars with boxer engines and differential-based ‘symmetrical’ four-wheel drive systems, and all the benefits they confer. It is a mechanically particular way to define a family of cars but has given the firm its own following for decades.

So what happens when it builds a car in which neither of those things can feature? One that has no need of a mechanical driveline at all and uses electric motors rather than a combustion engine? Does it still look, sound and drive like a Subaru? This week, we find out.

Unlike the Toyota bZ4X, the Solterra does have a radiator grille panel of sorts – a focal point for the front end, at least. Nice to see one that isn’t littered with sensors, too.

The Subaru Solterra was first shown to the public towards the end of 2021 and entered production in the spring of 2022. It shares a factory with its Toyota bZ4X sibling, but unlike the Subaru BRZ sports car, the Solterra is built on a Toyota line, rather than a Subaru line, in Japan.

Subaru isn’t all that coy in its promotional literature about the relationship between this car and the bZ4X, the Solterra described in several places as “Subaru’s version” of the vehicle, while little attempt has been made with the car’s styling both inside and out to conceal its relationship with the Toyota.

The question is, then, just how much old-school Subaru is there in this new-wave model addition? Is it an EV with a true and meaningful point of difference in any of the ways you might expect from the brand, or just what would appear, at first glance, to be another pretty cynical 21st-century Toyota clone?

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Range at a glance

The Solterra is available only in twin-motor four-wheel-drive form. That means a higher entry price than some single-motor rivals, though its more modest power output and battery capacity help make it more affordable, in lower-level trim at least, than some 4WD opponents.

The two equipment levels are Limited and Touring. Both get 150kW DC charging, a heat pump, surround-view parking cameras and Subaru’s X-Mode traction control system. Upper-level cars add 20in alloy wheels, premium audio, wireless smartphone charging, faux leather seats and a glass roof.

VersionPower
160kW AWD Limited215bhp

TRANSMISSION

1-spd reduction gear (per motor)   

DESIGN & STYLING

02 Subaru Solterra RT 2023 front driving

The Solterra sits on the new e-Subaru Global platform (what Toyota calls the e-TNGA platform), developed by Subaru and Toyota in collaboration. The Solterra’s design was likewise a joint venture.

Outwardly, the cars are almost identical – right down to alloy wheel rim design. The Subaru does get subtly different headlights and tail-lights, tweaked bumper designs and at least a token gesture of a radiator grille (where the Toyota has a more Tesla-like nose). Still, you can’t help reflecting that if Subaru was serious about distinguishing its cars in the electric age, perhaps there should be more clear air between the two models’ outward appearances.

Entry-level cars are fitted with 18in wheels; upper-spec Touring models get these 20s. Tyres are efficiency-biased Bridgestones. Chunky plastic arches would be a clearer design distinguisher on a bolder-coloured car.

Under the skin, then, the Solterra is a twin-motor, four-wheel-drive EV with all-independent suspension (unlike the bZ4X, a single-motor version is not offered). At 211mm, it has slightly more ground clearance than its Toyota equivalent (the four-wheel-drive bZ4X offers 206mm, an Audi Q4 E-tron Quattro only 180mm), so it can handle rutted tracks, muddy fields, steeper slopes and deeper ditches of standing water a bit more easily than rivals.

The Solterra also has off-road-intended electronic traction controls, hill descent controls and driving modes, although the standard fitted tyre is the same Bridgestone Alenza that features on the Toyota. To EV owners who tow, there’s similarly underwhelming news: the car’s maximum towing capacity is just 750kg, about half of what an equivalent Skoda Enyaq iV is rated for, and less still than a Volvo XC40 Recharge.

The car is driven by a pair of identical 107bhp, 125lb ft electric motors, one on each axle, so is more modestly powered than many rivals but also shorter-geared for greater accessible torque at low speeds.

That choice will have an impact on higher-speed cruising efficiency and associated electric range, of course, but the greater one is felt elsewhere. Like the bZ4X, the Solterra uses a 71.4kWh battery mounted under the cabin floor. That’s significantly less capacity than offered by twin-motor versions of the Tesla Model Y, Nissan Ariya and Volvo XC40, and the Volkswagen Group’s MEB-based EVs, for comparable outlay, and closer to the likes of the BMW iX1 and Mercedes-Benz EQB. The claimed range for our upper-trim test car was only 257 miles, in a class where rivals offer almost 30% more.

INTERIOR

09 Subaru Solterra RT 2023 dashboard

There’s a dearth of colour about the Solterra’s cabin. Grey plastics of quite widely differing grains present themselves as you get in, from the upper dashboard to the lower door consoles. While lighter, slightly richer grey textiles are used to add a more tactile finish to the fascia, and there’s synthetic leather upholstery for the seats, the expensive ambience that those materials pursue isn’t successfully created at all.

The Solterra’s feels like a slightly drab, oddly serious driving environment. The stretches of piano black trim on the centre console and a few chrome trims offer limited visual appeal, so you’re left to focus on the cheaper-looking mouldings, around the raised instrument pod and for the interior door release pulls especially, and then wonder where exactly this might look like a £50,000 car.

In terms of enhancing perceived quality, the secondary controls do better. Big, chunky-feeling column stalks and a good-sized rotary drive selector are reassuringly tactile. That there are permanent physical buttons for heater temperature, drive mode selection, stability control deactivation and one-pedal driving is to be applauded, even if the philosophy makes for a crowded steering boss.

Positioning of instrument pod brings a lot of grey plastics to your eyeline, many of which have different grains and finishes. The effect isn’t premium-feeling.

But the car’s instruments are rendered clearly, it offers plenty of useful cabin storage and the controls are intuitive enough to use – assuming you can get on with what is, at the very least to begin with, a strange-feeling driving position.

Very much in the modern Peugeot mould, the Solterra has a high-set driver’s seat and a small-rimmed, low-sprouting steering wheel. The column does adjust – but it’s obviously intended to be set low to leave a clear line of sight to the instruments over the top of the rim. Finding such a small steering wheel in a car this size certainly feels odd. While some testers couldn’t adopt a driving position they liked and which also granted them clear sight of the digital instruments, others did with practice.

Second-row passenger space is sufficient for adults of average height to travel in comfort, if not quite up to Skoda Enyaq iV or Tesla Model Y levels, and there is fairly generous knee room in particular but slightly restricted head room.

Boot space is likewise a little below the class best. The 60/40-split folding back seats allow easy expandability, although the back seats don’t slide. The boot itself has a wide opening, but it’s a little shallow under the load bay cover, and its outright volume is affected by the steeply raked rear window.

Multimedia system

13 Subaru solterra rt 2023 infotainment

All Solterras get a 12.3in touchscreen infotainment system as standard with factory navigation and wireless Apple CarPlay (Android Auto is wired). If you stump up for Touring trim, your audio system is upgraded to a nine-speaker Harman Kardon hi-fi, but the premium unit’s quality isn’t anything special.

The infotainment system has buttons for power and volume, but otherwise it’s operated entirely via the screen. It’s Toyota’s latest system, and it’s fairly easy to navigate thanks to a column of menu shortcuts on the driver’s side of the screen, but a cursor controller, either on the steering wheel or the centre console, would certainly be welcome.

Some of the system’s menu screens look sparse, possibly because Subaru doesn’t offer as much connected functionality as an equivalent Toyota would. The navigation system is easy to program and clearly displayed, though. It’s a little annoying that the trip computer doesn’t give a long-term average of energy consumption, instead dividing it into daily chunks.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

The Solterra posted marginally slower acceleration benchmarks than its twin-motor Toyota sibling managed, though the differences were most likely caused by the effect of the widely varying ambient temperatures on both cars’ grip level and battery performance.

The Solterra needed less than seven seconds to hit 60mph from rest, and little more than six to get from 30-70mph, so still adequate for a mid-sized family car in 2023.

Roof spoiler promises rather more performance than the Solterra delivers, but no doubt cuts drag too. Squared-off boot aperture makes for a wide loading access point.

The power always feels smartly delivered. It picks up with predictable briskness and immediacy but retains plenty of muscle even at motorway speeds. Overall, the car’s performance feels more assured than potent, exciting, enticing or even remotely characterful, and your reaction to it will depend largely on your expectations in those respects. Should a Subaru have a bit more charm about it than the equivalent Toyota? If you feel it should, the Solterra’s blandness might just leave you feeling disappointed.

You can select a one-pedal driving mode at the press of a button, and likewise toggle energy regeneration settings using the paddles mounted on the reverse of the steering wheel – so it’s easy to make the Solterra either coast or recapture the kinetic energy it’s carrying, as you need. Throttle response itself is quite progressive. Even on the road, this isn’t an EV that surges forward the instant you brush the accelerator. That makes it feel easy to drive, and does likewise off the road where managing the car’s momentum closely is more important.

The by-wire brake pedal has an acceptably well-reproduced semblance of progression and feel, and so it’s not difficult to slow or stop the car smoothly. During our emergency stop tests, outright stopping power felt slightly limited in strictly subjective terms, but the car’s recorded stopping distances were competitive.

Handling and stability

The Solterra’s suspension specification may be slightly different from its Toyota equivalent’s, but the driving experience on the road is very similar. This car handles with the kind of security and stability you would expect from a Subaru, and feels assured in almost everything it does. However, you wouldn’t call it involving, and there is little to keep you particularly interested in what you’re doing at the wheel, or to engender an appetite for more.

The chassis’s lack of any particular handling agility is plain even through Subaru’s downsized steering wheel. The Solterra corners acceptably well, of course, and communicates a little. Millbrook’s alpine test track obliged with a few icy patches of asphalt on the day of our test, and the chassis and steering combined to let the driver know exactly where they were, though it didn’t struggle to remain stable and true when crossing them.

Body control is respectable. There’s some pitch and roll but not much and it’s quickly checked, and there’s enough wheel travel to deal effectively with bigger inputs without disturbing the composure of the car too much. Damping is progressive but effective – and so, when you hurry the car through a series of faster corners, it remains fairly precise and stable.

In some ways, then, the Solterra does grip and handle at least a little better than its two-tonne kerb weight leads you to expect, but in other ways it doesn’t. The biggest disappointment, perhaps, is that a brand like Subaru hasn’t done more with motor calibration or torque vectoring to add extra poise and dynamism to the car’s cornering manners. The Solterra just gets through bends, rather than really engaging with them.

RIDE & HANDLING

19 Subaru Solterra RT 2023 front corner

The Solterra’s suspension specification may be slightly different from its Toyota equivalent’s, but the driving experience on the road is very similar. This car handles with the kind of security and stability you would expect from a Subaru, and feels assured in almost everything it does. However, you wouldn’t call it involving, and there is little to keep you particularly interested in what you’re doing at the wheel, or to engender an appetite for more.

The chassis’s lack of any particular handling agility is plain even through Subaru’s downsized steering wheel. The Solterra corners acceptably well, of course, and communicates a little. Millbrook’s alpine test track obliged with a few icy patches of asphalt on the day of our test, and the chassis and steering combined to let the driver know exactly where they were, though it didn’t struggle to remain stable and true when crossing them.

Body control is respectable. There’s some pitch and roll but not much and it’s quickly checked, and there’s enough wheel travel to deal effectively with bigger inputs without disturbing the composure of the car too much. Damping is progressive but effective – and so, when you hurry the car through a series of faster corners, it remains fairly precise and stable.

Suspension is all-independent. Weight distribution on our scales was 54:46 front to rear, just as was the closely related Toyota bZ4X.

In some ways, then, the Solterra does grip and handle at least a little better than its two-tonne kerb weight leads you to expect, but in other ways it doesn’t. The biggest disappointment, perhaps, is that a brand like Subaru hasn’t done more with motor calibration or torque vectoring to add extra poise and dynamism to the car’s cornering manners. The Solterra just gets through bends, rather than really engaging with them.

Comfort and isolation

20 Subaru solterra rt 2023 rear corner

The Solterra’s medium-high driving position is comfortable and affords good forwards visibility, and unlike some rival EVs it doesn’t struggle to keep control of close body movements on uneven roads (a phenomenon we often refer to as head toss). In that respect, the car’s moderately tuned, longer-travel suspension works well, and gives it a broadly based foundation of comfort that is compatible with all kinds of British roads.

On the motorway it rides in settled, supple fashion, though the axles are allowed to conduct a little noise into the passenger compartment, and wind noise is only averagely well filtered. At a 70mph cruise, we recorded 68dBA of cabin noise, which was almost identical to what the Toyota bZ4X returned – but, while a couple of decibels quieter than a Tesla Model Y, it was three decibels noisier than a Nissan Ariya.

The driver assistance systems are subtle and unobtrusive, with the lane keeping in particular easy to toggle on and off via a button on the steering wheel spoke. Others are managed via the steering wheel consoles and high-set instrument screen, so flicking them on and off isn’t the distraction from the road ahead that it might otherwise be.

Off-road notes

Ground clearance and wading depth are probably the Solterra’s greatest off-road assets. They allow it to deal with rutted tracks and slopes, and to get in and out of fields easily. Those sub-20deg approach and breakover angles ultimately make really arduous climbing and descending impossible, but even with electronic traction aids, the Solterra’s tyres aren’t suitable for extreme off-roading anyway (though these could be changed, of course).

The X-Mode off-road driving aids come as standard. Grip Control works like Land Rover’s all-surface progress control system, allowing the car to manage its own momentum over rough terrain like a super-slow cruise control. X-Mode offers Snow/Dirt and Deep Snow/Mud modes, and reappraises the motor calibration, wheelslip tolerance and brake-based torque vectoring for the different applications. We tested it on a graded gravel track and found it created surprisingly strong traction with a little wheelspin in the mix.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

01 Subaru Solterra RT 2023 lead front

Being available exclusively as a two-motor electric car gets the Solterra off to a bad start here. That undistinguished interior quality would certainly grate a bit less on a family EV whose starting price was closer to £40,000. As it is, £49,995 is Subaru’s entry price, and for that outlay even a buyer who appreciates the car’s capability probably has a right to expect better real-world range, more performance – or both.

Our testing certainly didn’t suggest that the Solterra is hiding anything in either respect. It returned 2.7mpkWh in our 70mph motorway cruising efficiency test, at which rate it would empty its drive battery in fewer than 180 miles. We tested the car in chilly conditions that would have hamstrung battery performance even with that standard heat pump fitted, so in warmer temperatures, and if you stayed off the motorway in predominantly short-range driving, 200 miles ought to be just about possible. But, for a £50,000 EV, that isn’t a great showing.

I drove the Solterra around quite a lot with the heater off, just because turning it on, and seeing the range estimation tumble so far, was so demoralising. It may be only a software glitch, but Subaru needs to address it quickly.

Our test conditions also gave the Solterra’s cabin heater more to do. It suffers with the same problem as that in the bZ4X, penalising advertised range by about 25% the moment you switch it on. (Toyota claimed this was a software calibration problem on the bZ4X, so Solterra owners can probably expect more realistic range estimation implemented as a software update on the car.)

Subaru advertises a 150kW maximum DC rapid-charging rate for the car. In our rapid-charge test, it drew power at that rate for only a short period, and slowed to a crawl at higher states of charge. Its weighted average DC rapid-charge rate worked out at less than 80kW, which is poor compared with key rivals.

VERDICT

20 Subaru Solterra RT 2023 verdict static

Even as electric car adoption rises, the state of maturity of the technology makes it hard to imagine a customer for a do-anything EV such as the Subaru Solterra.

Part of the problem is that while it does have an off-road capability advantage over its peers, it’s not a particularly big one, especially compared with combustion-powered 4x4s. But the bigger problem is the millstones of both range and charging. A real-world 180-mile range isn’t much to consider a weekend in the wilderness with, and similarly priced rivals offer markedly more. Moreover, the Solterra doesn’t manage, meter or display what range it has as well as it should, and it doesn’t rapid-charge as quickly as it might either.

Driving the car in more typical daily use would be pleasant enough, but in this context the car’s four-wheel-drive credentials add little; it has a pretty unremarkable driving experience; and there are plenty of rivals that offer greater performance, cabin appeal and range for similar outlay. And it’s a particular shame, of course, that the Solterra doesn’t have more Subaru-typical left-field charm to make up for those shortcomings.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.