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Subaru is working with Toyota to bring a fully electric SUV to market by 2025
December 22, 2020
Subaru is one of the last auto manufacturers to announce any plans to build a fully electric vehicle, but that has finally changed. Subaru has announced that they are working with Toyota to develop a fully electric small SUV that is roughly the size of the current Subaru Forester. And they have said that it will be available sometime before 2025.
Four years is not a lot of time to develop a new car like this which is completely from the ground up. Especially an electric vehicle that will have very little if anything in common with something that Subaru currently produces. But at the same time, because Subaru (and Toyota for that matter, as this is their first fully electric offering as well) have waited so long, there are some that are thinking that this may be too little too late for this EV offering to stand much of a chance in the market when it is finally available.
You might remember that I wrote an article a little over a year ago talking about the performance potential that could come from a fully electric STI. And I still think that if Subaru would fully embrace the strengths of what electric motors can do, and apply those benefits to the STI to wring out its maximum potential, it could be an amazing car. And honestly, if they take that same approach with this new small SUV, much of that same potential is still there.
First and foremost, Subaru has continued to refine the potential of all-wheel drive for the better part of 35 years now. In the STI they have done so from a performance standpoint, but in their other vehicles like the Forester, Outback, etc., they have done it from a reliability and safety standpoint. What is new, and I hope will not be lost on this EV, is that Subaru is starting to move in the direction of the off-road performance and utility that all-wheel drive can offer as well.
In that arena, I think that it will soon be realized that there are some significant benefits to electric vehicles where you can have very precise control of either an axle through a single motor and differential, or of each specific wheel with a dedicated motor. Not to mention the potentials in terms of ground clearance and center of gravity that an electric car with batteries has as well. I think that if Subaru focuses on this aspect to give us at least a couple of small benefits from this new electrification, that could be very cool.
I would love to see a more off-road focused Subaru, and it could be fantastic if it was electric.
Last but certainly not least, this may not be as much of a case of too little too late for this EV platform. All of the current electric vehicles on the road, or soon to come out, are using Lithium-ion batteries to store electricity. Those technologies are improving very quickly, but in terms of fast recharging and energy density (which is tied to the size of the battery packs and therefore weight), the difference between an electric car that you would buy today, and what you would have got five years ago is not that significant.
I think that it would be fair to group the current group of electric vehicles that use Lithium-ion batteries into a first generation of electric cars. But with a couple of recent announcements, the second generation of electric vehicles is now just a few years away.
A company named QuantumScape just published their results of a new solid-state lithium battery that has now largely proved that it is possible to produce a lithium battery that doesn't need a liquid electrolyte, and that brings with it the potential for huge improvements in battery technology. Specifically, faster recharging, and nearly double the energy capacity compared to the top of the line Lithium-ion batteries that are available today. At a minimum this should mean a reduction in batter size and weight of about 50%, and faster recharging. Most likely much faster recharging than what is available now.
Because this technology is just being developed and proven, it will take some time to be ready for actual production, but in the QuantumScape article, they estimate that their battery should be ready for mass production right around 2025. What is particularly worth noting here is that Toyota is also said to have been working on something similar to this technology, and there are rumors that their battery would rival the performance of what QuantumScape has just announced. If this is true, it would make perfect sense that Toyota would include this new battery technology in this new platform.
This is definitely a step in the right direction for Toyota and Subaru, and it seems like their estimated release of 2025 could be just in time for the next generation of electric vehicles to come to market. All they have to do is give us some of the inherent performance benefits that an electric drivetrain could offer, and this new electric SUV could end up setting a new standard for the market. All they have to do is to lean into what they do best, and show us some of the potential that an electric drivetrain can bring to one of their vehicles, and this could put them right on top of this type of vehicle once again.
- Jon Cooley
