TOKYO, Japan - Would you like to co-exist with nature? If that’s the case, Subaru is building a car just for you and they’re calling it the Solterra. The company has just announced that its new all-electric car will go on sale in key markets such as the USA in 2022, with global roll-out to follow soon after.
The Solterra is Subaru’s all-new, all-electric C-segment SUV and it will be the first Subaru vehicle to be built on the battery electric vehicle (BEV) dedicated e-Subaru Global Platform.
The e-Subaru Global platform, which has been jointly-developed by Subaru and Toyota, enables the company to roll out various types of EVs efficiently by combining multiple modules and components, such as the front, centre and rear of a vehicle.
While the two companies have brought together their knowledge to create a completely new platform, Subaru have aimed to realise superior passive safety and vehicle stability, which Subaru has always been pursuing, also in this BEV dedicated platform.
The Solterra has been jointly-developed by Subaru and Toyota, and a wide range of collaboration that includes product planning, design and performance evaluation. In this development, the two companies combined their respective strengths, such as Subaru’s long-accumulated all-wheel-drive technology and Toyota’s vehicle electrification technology, to create a new SUV with attributes that only an all- electric vehicle can offer, they say.
The name “Solterrra” was created by joining the words “Sol” and “Terra”, the Latin for “sun” and “the Earth” respectively. Subaru gave this name to the EV to appreciate mother nature and further advance the form of coexistence with it, together with customers, and to represent the brand’s commitment to deliver traditional Subaru SUV go-anywhere capabilities in an all-electric vehicle.
The Solterra will go on sale by the middle of 2022 in Japan, the US, Canada, Europe and China. Subaru South Africa has not made any comment on whether they are evaluating the Solterra for local introduction. The company has, however, recently introduced the updated XV and the new Outback in Mzansi.