If you're buying a Subaru, you're buying it because you value safety and reliability of the car, because your life/livelihood depend on it. You're not concerned about the infotainment system.
That's part, I think not to dissimilar from a jeep, people buy them for the "lifestyle". Plenty of people take them off road, but plenty also like the idea that they could go off road.
in theory EVs would be ideal for off-roading. Low end torque and the ability to control the motors independently. I think something like the Mercedes portal axles attached to electric motors would be amazing.
Yes but that’s inherent to the platform and needs to be controlled really well with software which is not something the brand is good at. They had great mechanical awd systems that are not relevant to this type of design
They sell reliable cars with a good AWD system and drivetrain and decent ground clearance.
If they sold reliable PHEVs or even BEVs with 220mm+ ground clearance and some branding around torque and traction control, and they had any kind of advantage over Toyota in that niche, they'd probably do alright in the "I don't want a Land Cruiser BUT" market.
(Yeah, yeah, EJ head gaskets, just don't buy anything with an EJ series engine.)
No you're not. You're buying a Subaru because how awesome was the WRX STi and how they did in WRC! Naturally I speak for the motivations of all Subaru buyers and you don't. We can't know what reasons people do buy a Subaru, but people buying them because of awesome things professional race car drivers do in modified versions of their car has got to be non-zero.
As a 25 year Subaru driver, it's a bit of one and a bit of two. I have a safe ride in the winter and do a full Costco run, and I can book it down curvy dirt roads at unsafe speeds to indulge my inner rally car driver.
I was actually shocked to find that Subaru in the US was this kind of safe, maybe outdoorsy brand. I had never seen anything but Imprezas inspired by WRC before I got here. Only boy racers drove them where I grew up.
Well I for one got so used to the CVT it's not even funny any more. Every time we rent a car we get a random non-CVT car and the acceleration behavior is just so funky in comparison, I can't stand it any more.
I stopped buying Subaru and started buying Toyota specifically for the reasons you listed and because Toyota (and Honda) make more reliable cars that hold their value longer. Used car depreciation curves tell the only story I need to read before purchasing a car.
Not sure why this is being downvoted so hard. More than the ui ux experience the damn thing just freezes and needs to be restated regardless of the phone being used. Subaru outsourced their software and it shows.
I’ve rented a fair number of cars in the last year. All of them seemed equally bad to me.
Like I’m sure people will have preferences or pet peeve that effects one brand more than another other, but the infotainment systems just all seem uninspiring to me. Some do some parts better while doing others worse.
It would be unusual to get a Subaru rental unless you specifically asked for one. The issue with theirs is terrible input lag and random hang ups similar to Phones of early vintage
Tesla is probably best, Hyundai has a pretty decent one for a big manufacturer. I havent tried Rivian. Audi was ok. The rest are pretty mid, rental jeep one was really bad.
The Rivian infotainment is incredibly confusing for me. So difficult to find anything. I haven't been using it for a long time or anything, but figuring out how to access things like the AC temperature was super annoying. Everything is little icons and submenus and there's hardly any labels!
Also it's based on Google maps which I'm not a fan of.
I would never take the opinion of someone who says that Tesla's infotainment is best seriously. They're the pioneers of putting every essential car function on that damn screen, which is not only inconvenient but also a driving risk.
Regardless of the "everything on one screen" concerns, the one thing that Tesla indisputably does well is their infotainment screen is snappy. It's so incredible to me that cars produced this year still have choppy, laggy, or high latency displays. Even if the actual system is useful/thoughtful/well laid out, it makes the usability experience feel absolutely terrible. You don't want to use it if every tap/click/selection has a 1 second delay...
"Subaru is killing off gas cars and will only sell rebadged Toyota EVs in Europe."
Subaru was talking about an electric model over 20 years ago! I saw the concept drawings. Whoever has run Subaru for the last 20 years needs to be given a watch and thanked for their service on their way out the door.
The idea that Subaru could build a viable electric car 20 years ago seems like a stretch. Many other companies may have had electric car concepts that were scrapped because they could neither figure out how to build them, nor was there a strong market for them.
Subaru is not a large car manufacturer. Toyota sells over 10x the amount of cars and Nissan sells 3x-5x, they are not equals. And Nissan did build an electric car 16 years ago and the company is currently circling the drain.
It was never going to be a jump straight to EV (although the concept car model type still doesn't exist to this day), they knew the path was to go hybrid first. They've made some weak attempts at hybrids but they have fallen so far behind in EV development at this point that they soon will only be selling rebadged Toyotas. There's no way that's sustainable for an auto manufacturer.
I wouldn't call it sustainable, but Subaru can persist for quite a while without an EV platform. Their main markets are the US (72%) and Japan (11%), neither of which have significant EV penetration. They are, and will continue to be, a bit player worldwide.
EV development also gets easier every year as it becomes more common. Companies don't have to have cutting-edge technology to compete, and Subaru has plans to release their own EV platform in 2029. I do not expect it to be cutting edge, but loyal Subaru owners won't be expecting that either.
just a data point: i have a 2026 Subaru Uncharted, awd EV, and it's superlative.
For context, i had a 2014 BMW i3 for about 8 years, the design was neat, the engineering undependable, an Audi A5 for 2.x years, truly excellent and i loved it like my old used SAAB 900 turbo of long ago, and a BMW i4 xdrive40 for 3 years, truly shitty engineering, but pretty shape and paint job.
The Subaru EV does share components with Toyota/Lexus(/Subaru) but handles __way__ better than the BMW for 2/3 the price, has vastly nicer EV component design (like heat pump and periphery, which is outsourced by BMW and failed on both my i3 and i4).
> Known for its boxer engines, Subaru’s shift to an all-electric lineup is not necessarily by choice. Subaru Germany confirmed the news to Auto Motor und sport, saying the decision is due to the European Union’s emissions and driver-assistance regulations.
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[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 13.7 ms ] thread(Subaru marketshare is already fairly small in Europe, but an interesting data point imho as global electrification continues)
Related:
https://ember-energy.org/data/ev-sales-tracker/
https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?lang=en&freq=monthl...
https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
If they sold reliable PHEVs or even BEVs with 220mm+ ground clearance and some branding around torque and traction control, and they had any kind of advantage over Toyota in that niche, they'd probably do alright in the "I don't want a Land Cruiser BUT" market.
(Yeah, yeah, EJ head gaskets, just don't buy anything with an EJ series engine.)
https://www.subaru.com/vehicle-info/article/what-is-apple-ca...
Like I’m sure people will have preferences or pet peeve that effects one brand more than another other, but the infotainment systems just all seem uninspiring to me. Some do some parts better while doing others worse.
Please name some cars that have standout bad/good infotainment because none of those stood out either way.
Or at least since you’re griping about what you think is a particularly bad one, name three good ones.
Also it's based on Google maps which I'm not a fan of.
Subaru was talking about an electric model over 20 years ago! I saw the concept drawings. Whoever has run Subaru for the last 20 years needs to be given a watch and thanked for their service on their way out the door.
Subaru is not a large car manufacturer. Toyota sells over 10x the amount of cars and Nissan sells 3x-5x, they are not equals. And Nissan did build an electric car 16 years ago and the company is currently circling the drain.
EV development also gets easier every year as it becomes more common. Companies don't have to have cutting-edge technology to compete, and Subaru has plans to release their own EV platform in 2029. I do not expect it to be cutting edge, but loyal Subaru owners won't be expecting that either.
For context, i had a 2014 BMW i3 for about 8 years, the design was neat, the engineering undependable, an Audi A5 for 2.x years, truly excellent and i loved it like my old used SAAB 900 turbo of long ago, and a BMW i4 xdrive40 for 3 years, truly shitty engineering, but pretty shape and paint job.
The Subaru EV does share components with Toyota/Lexus(/Subaru) but handles __way__ better than the BMW for 2/3 the price, has vastly nicer EV component design (like heat pump and periphery, which is outsourced by BMW and failed on both my i3 and i4).
Yes.
- a subaru forester owner who wanted to like the vehicle but is tired of oil leaks and counting the days before the head gasket lets go