I’ve waited a long time to review the Subaru Solterra. I come from what I lovingly refer to as a ‘Subaru family’ – growing up, my Dad had a 2000 Liberty Wagon, my mum had a ’02 RX, and my brother moved from an ’07 Liberty, to an ’03 WRX, to a ’19 Liberty Sedan. It’s my formative car brand, so naturally, I was holding out for the company’s first electric car.
After driving the car for a week, I’ve been left a bit deflated.
The Solterra has all the hallmarks of a good Subaru and has many of the sales points of a mid-size electric SUV crossed off and perfected, but when you put it beside its closest competitors, such as the much cheaper Tesla Model Y, the Kia EV6, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5, you’re left without much.
Its battery range leaves a lot to be desired, its public charging speed is not too special, its acceleration is sluggish, and ultimately it simply doesn’t look as premium, inside or out, as any of these other mentioned cars.
But, we can appreciate the Solterra with the fact it’ll likely impress some Subaru fans, and perhaps push the needle on an EV purchase. The Subaru fans I let behind the wheel seemed fairly impressed, though one of them who was considering an EV purchase wasn’t too sold on it.
If impressing fans of the Pleiades badge is the purpose, then here’s a good way of putting it: the Subaru Solterra is a good electric car, but it is not a great electric car. If it were released two years ago, as it was in the U.S., it would have arrived in time to properly compete with the original RRP of the Tesla Model Y down under, which came two years ago in Australia. At the entry price today, if released back then (ideally without the early-gen quirks), it’d be perfectly poised to take the EV giant on, price, performance, and even range considered.
But that didn’t happen, and here we are today, with dozens more EVs since then, and without a single Subaru Solterra revamp, apart from slight improvements to charging time and the company’s EyeSight technology, along with a new steering wheel (all these changes are present on the Australian model). We joked about the car’s identical twin brother, the BZ4X, being a ‘Tesla killer’, but the value just isn’t here for Subaru (the only major difference is that there’s a cheaper front-wheel-drive variant of the BZ4X). It’s tough to imagine what the goal is here beyond the odd purchase from a brand diehard.
Subaru, know that I love you. To everybody else, here’s what I thought of the Subaru Solterra.
Outback and out the front
Most of my time with the Subaru Solterra was spent on roads in suburban and inner-city roads, along with a drive from Sydney to Newcastle and back over a weekend, and for these casual drives, it’s difficult to complain about the Solterra too much. I wasn’t able to give it a blat offroad, unfortunately, but I do appreciate the car’s exterior plastic panelling for this purpose (though I am anxious about how much these would wear). In its review, Drive did note that it had a surprising offroad ability.
It is, all things considered, a nice city and family car. It handles nicely with its AWD platform, visibility in the car is great, and it features an extremely solid bird’s-eye camera system that gives a great sense of depth.
Much of the car in this context just makes sense, but there’s a caveat to it all, the OS isn’t overwhelming, although there isn’t a lot of customisation to be had. The car has great safety features, but I feel like I’m getting beeped at constantly. The interior cabin looks great, but not $69K great.
At its most barebones, it is at least, a spacious SUV. I helped a friend move during my time with the car, and it seemed perfect for the task with the rear seats folded down. It has 410 litres of boot space, but Subaru hasn’t specified space with seats folded down, it seemed fine though. The glass roof makes the car feel much more open, though on its own, it does feel reasonably spacious. The layout of ports, the armrest, and the centre box feels sensible, even if there is no glovebox for some reason, and the wireless charger sucks (all car wireless chargers suck, to be fair).
The centre console is nicely sized and for a button lover, it doesn’t feel overwhelming in the same way that, for example, the Mustang Mach-E’s screen might. Buttons, knobs, and screens considered, the Solterra feels more like an EV trying to replicate a standard car’s feel than any other EV I’ve ever driven.
I can’t help but love that approach, but unfortunately, a lot of the car ends up looking and feeling cheap. It simply doesn’t need to have as many buttons as it does. So many of them just doubled up on features.
Oh, also, no frunk. Sorry frunk lovers. You may also be turned off by what I consider the cardinal sin of first-attempt EVs; having an ugly ‘EV’ badge on the exterior, of which the Solterra has three. We get it, you’re an EV.
It kinda WRXs as an EV
There is no surprise it’s good at being a car, that’s the lowest bar the Subaru Solterra needs to cross, but how is it as an EV?
Well, I can safely say that battery range is sorely lacking. 414km WLTP range isn’t great for this price, and it is easy for almost every similarly priced EV to beat. The same goes for its torque – 337Nm of torque is extremely easy to beat, especially by the hero of the category, the Model Y. The car’s max tow, 750kg, also leaves a lot to be desired. Its 150kWh max DC/public charging speed is also unimpressive, but I’ll be honest, this likely won’t irk you.
On the efficiency side of things, I did notice the Solterra was quite demanding. I normally don’t discuss energy efficiency in my reviews, but the Solterra absolutely underperformed in this regard. From a mix of highway, suburban, and inner-city driving, the Solterra achieved 18.4kWh/100km – a troubling figure, considering the Model Y’s 16.7/kWh/100km figure (per Drive), and even the Hyundai Kona Electric’s figure of 15.7kWh/100km (also per Drive). That explains the unfortunate range.
Behind the wheel, you’ll notice lacking performance when you floor it. It has a bit of lag when you put your foot down that just makes you wonder why you would get an EV in the first place. Acceleration is part of the fun, let me accelerate – 0-100km/h in 6.9 seconds isn’t too inspiring for an AWD EV. I didn’t notice a difference between the standard and ‘Power’ driving modes when I was behind the wheel.
At least the car handles great. It has a nice road presence, its lane assistance is sound, and it’s easy to summon its camera system. I wish it didn’t take upwards of five seconds for the OS to load whenever you get into the car, it’s extremely annoying.
The silver lining of all of this is that the AWD platform just rocks. It’s among the cheapest AWD EVs in Australia, and if you’re after a car with great handling, this is the one to consider.
I’m not completely sold on its layout in the driver’s seat. The size and shape of the wheel kind of left me unimpressed, though I did like the contouring lines surrounding the instrument cluster display. Some notifications and widgets appeared perhaps a little too small now and again, so I’d hope in a future iteration, icons appear a bit bigger. At times it was difficult to tell if I had lane assistance toggled, and back to the buttons, it was often difficult to tell what my button click had just done.
The rear vision was great, and the rear camera, via the mirror, was so satisfying that I ended up using it for most of my time with the car. It just worked well, so I kept using it.
That doesn’t Impreza me much
So overall, it’s not too great a picture I’m putting together of the Subaru Solterra. The good news is that, among several Subaru drivers, I did gauge some thoughts about the car. One simply told me that it ‘felt like my car, but electric’, while another agreed that it certainly felt familiar and easy to drive, and the spacey steering wheel added a nice bit of character.
But it does feel a bit dated. It’s a mid-size electric SUV without much revision. It’s not here to break records, it’s here to be neutral and inoffensive. In doing this, I feel as if it’s completely washed over the personality of great Subarus. It just feels safe and uninteresting.
But if that’s the greatest sin the Subaru Solterra commits, that it’s not impressive to automotive diehards, then it’s not the worst place to be in. If it’s good, then it’s good. If Subaru wanted to make a car that was anything more than ‘good’, then it would have released an EV separate from this.
Verdict: Should you buy the Subaru Solterra?
I recommend the Subaru Solterra if you’re married to the Subaru badge, or want a great AWD feeling, but if you’re more interested in the ‘electric’ aspect of this car, which I wager you are, then I’d recommend you look at its closest competitors. Almost every point of difference in the Solterra can be bested by its closest competitors, and it’s just not very ambitious on its own.
This is a comparatively ‘old’ car, EVs are rapidly improving, and this model hasn’t seen any systemic change in the two years since it first went on sale in the United States. We saw a similar thing last year with the Peugeot E-2008, the French automaker decided to release the old model in Australia, just as the European market was getting the new model, at a price point that was just silly. It, unsurprisingly, didn’t sell well, because it was an old model released in competition with much better newer models, and Peugeot has since said the new E-2008 will be coming down under.
If the Subaru Solterra is intended to be taken seriously, then it’s in desperate need of a refresh, and it sucks having to say this about a car that just got here. I hope Subaru’s planned seven EVs by 2028 are better.
I love you, Subaru, but the Soltera struggles to keep up with the competition on a few fronts.
The Subaru Solterra starts at $69,990 in Australia. The ‘Touring’ trim starts at $76,990, and adds 20-inch alloy rims (18-inch on standard), the panoramic glass roof, upgraded upholstery, a wireless phone charger, an electric front passenger seat, a Harmon Kardon sound system, and hands-free parking assistance.
Image: Zachariah Kelly/Gizmodo Australia
Want more Aussie car news? Here’s every EV we’ve reviewed in the last two years, all the EVs we can expect down under soon, and our guide to finding EV chargers across the country. Check out our dedicated Cars tab for more.