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What if Subaru built an Electric STI?
November 24, 2019
We know that Subaru is working with Toyota to develop an electric car that will be on a small SUV platform for both of manufacturers. Supposedly it is roughly the size of the current Crosstrek and it should be available in roughly 1 to 2 years. By that time, there will most likely be even more electric options on the market, so this is coming just in time for both Subaru and Toyota.
If you think about Subaru’s core philosophy, they design cars around a low center of gravity and their symmetrical all-wheel drive system. Going electric and putting the batteries at the floor of the car and building the drivetrain around 2 or 3 electric motors would fit perfectly in a Subaru.
So what if Subaru took a cue from Porsche in their development of the Taycan, and maybe even a bit of inspiration from Ford and the Mustang Mach-E and made an electric STI?
A little over a decade ago, electric cars were just thought of as small, efficient, utilitarian vehicles. There wasn’t much exciting about them at all really. But then Tesla came onto the market, and they designed cars around what electric motors do that internal combustion engines struggle to compete with. That is to deliver maximum torque pretty much on demand, and over a much wider range than even modern engines can. And that means acceleration. Lots and lots of acceleration.
Tesla showed us that electric cars could be cool and fast. Really fast.
At first, that design philosophy also came with a hefty price tag that most likely scared other manufactures away from trying to build a similar vehicle. But what Tesla have shown with the Model 3, and now possibly to a similar extent what Ford is showing with the Mustang Mach-E, is that price for all electric performance is coming down. And it is coming down quickly. In fact, these cars are getting close to the price of a fully optioned STI for instance.
As fun as acceleration is, there is another aspect of using electric motors to drive the car that can get overlooked. That is the ability that the electric motors give you to create traction and traction control in a way that is simply impossible with an engine that always has to keep spinning. If you put 2 or 3 electric motors in a car, you can very easily maximize any traction that is available just by controlling the motors which are connected to the wheels directly. You don’t have to wait for a differential and brake calipers to respond.
If you decide to use your full ability to control each wheel directly to improve cornering performance and control the yaw of the car, you can redefine what it means for a car to handle well. Think Subaru’s symmetrical AWD on steroids.
I read an article about testing that BMW was doing by making a 5 Series electric, and how impressed they were with the handling potential that 3 electric motors brought to the platform. As soon as I read that, I wanted to see what Subaru could do if they did the same thing with an STI.
To go back to Porsche, one of the aspects that people are most impressed with in the Taycan is that it really handles like a Porsche. The Porsche engineers made it a priority for the car to feel and drive like what their customers expected. The most interesting of these was to see what Walter Rohrl thought after driving the Taycan. There was no doubt that it was a Porsche.
So if you connect those dots with Subaru and the STI, it is not a stretch to see that an electric STI should not only accelerate faster than any STI ever (maybe even some of the race cars), but it should also handle better than any Subaru ever has before. Subaru could easily make an electric STI the very best STI ever offered.
And if you are still not sure if an electric all wheel drive car can be fun, check out Projekt-E. This is al all electric rally cross series that is being developed in Europe. They have their prototype car running now, and they have released a bit of video of it on course.
In short, it looks like a dream to drive! And a ton of fun on track!
So would you drive an electric STI? After thinking about it and writing this, I know I would not hesitate to get on the Electric Rally Blue band wagon.
- Jon Cooley