Japanese automakers are slowly getting on to the electric car bandwagon, but that wagon isn’t going anywhere fast. Subaru recently confirmed that they would be bringing a mid-sized SUV, about the size of their Forester, to European shores, sometime in the first half of the 2020s.
The short announcement with very limited information read as follows:
Subaru Europe, the subsidiary of Subaru Corporation in Europe, today confirmed the company is preparing for the launch of a full electric vehicle.
Scheduled for introduction in the first half of 2020’s, Subaru’s all-electric vehicle will be a mid-size SUV, similar in size to the Subaru Forester model. It will be built on a platform shared with Toyota.
Additional information will be shared sometime next year.
The news underlines Subaru’s efforts to reduce its environmental footprint in Europe and satisfy a growing demand for alternative powertrains.
It also signals the brand’s second electrification step in Europe after it recently launched mild-hybrid variants of three core models in the region, where the Impreza e-BOXER, Subaru XV e-BOXER and Forester e-BOXER models today represents 60% of the sales volume.
“First half of 2020’s” is a very interesting choice of wording as it gives a rather large range, but makes many think that we won’t see this car until just before 2025. After all, if they were planning a 2022 or 2023 launch, most of the time you would say so in an attempt to show that you aren’t dragging your feet.
Regardless of when it finally makes its way onto the road, the electric SUV will ride on a platform that is being co-developed with Toyota. Coincidently Toyota also announced that they would be bringing a mid-sized electric SUV to Europe. They however did not specify a delivery timeline, only that more information would be coming in the next few months. Are the two connected? Does this mean that Toyota’s electric SUV will also take a while to hit the road, or will their higher production capacity allow them to bring the car sooner than the smaller Subaru?
We will have to still wait a few months to get some more concrete information from hopefully both Toyota and Subaru. While it’s nice that we are finally starting to get some EV news, the slow pace of these rollouts leaves something to be desired.
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