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The favorite brand of neophyte rally hooligans and alternative lifestyle practitioners everywhere is finally going hybrid. Subaru’s first hybrid product will take the form of this mucus green XV Crosstrek shown here. Unfortunately, no details have been announced, and we’ll have to wait until next week’s New York Auto Show to find out more.
Can’t believe they didn’t do this sooner, with the greeney-types who drive their vehicles. The Pac Northwest will be filled with hybrid Subarus.
Not surprised at all. Considering they own the market for the greeney-types, why bother going to the expense before you absolutely have to? If anything, I’m amazed they’re moving on it this quickly. Maybe they’re starting to see a softening in the greeney-types market?
I don’t think there are any other CUV hybrids on the market. This might sell fairly well.
Lexus still makes the RX hybrid, but it certainly isn’t the hottest point in the hybrid market. I think the Ford Escape Hybrid was the biggest seller or at least the most visible, but they decided to drop it when they brought in the ecoboost engines.
Subaru definitely has a chance to claim this niche.
I’m not sure Subaru will claim many bread-butter Escape hybrid buyers. They’d probably more likely upgrade to a Highlander hybrid or RX.
Can’t you get a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, along with the Lexus RX and the Ford Escape?
(edit: oh right, the Escape hybrid was nixed in favor of the C-Max. I wonder if that means I’ll start seeing C-Max cabs instead of Escape cabs…)
Wonder if it’ll still have a boxer ICE paired with the electric motor? And if it’ll be unique in that it powers all four wheels via Subaru’s symmetrical AWD system?
So you can buy silver wheels to replace the black ones Subaru chose to put on the standard model(s)? I detest the black ones.
Find someone with 17″ on an Impreza who would rather have the black rims and swap.
Shhhhh… Listen. You can hear all the hippies and man-hating lesbians cheering!
“Yob-mobiles” as Jeremy Clarkson describes them.
Must be a US thing or 20 year old wives’ tale. Here in Canada Subaru customers are the urban hipsters, bicycle and fitness freaks, shiny happy people with scrubbed clean kids, or just older sensible people.
As gleaned from watching people dropping off cars for service over the last 16 years. But then in the US people seem to want to identify with their crowd more than we do here.
The description you gave for Canada is probably generally applicable here as well. For some reason, the lesbian thing keeps getting re-stated over and over even though it’s hardly the only audience for Subarus. They are particularly popular in hipster-ish areas of the Pacific Coast and Colorado + in the northeast due to AWD from what I’ve seen.
Here in California, if you are in locations where aggro spandex dudes are biking, you will often see a bike rack on a Subie.
My PARENTS have a Subaru. They retired to Washington state, near Leavenworth where there is a lot of snow in winter. Funny thing, my dad has a Prius as well. I think he likes the combination of cheap and high tech more than the “green”.
In other words, this car is exactly the sort of thing my parents would buy. The car for retired people in snowy places?
In England, Subarus and Imprezas in particular are seen as a redneck’s car. They’re popular with young kids in rural areas, who like the turbo performance and the ability to handle rough farm tracks. Hence Clarkson’s “yobmobile” description. I have no idea who buys them new for £25-30k. It’s interesting to see the massive difference in image and customer base across the Atlantic.
Who would buy new when you can buy a decent looking used one for £1,500? Not to mention all the mechanical differences and terrible outward visibility that came along in 2008. Or 2006 if you want to get into the engine.
It will be interesting to see if it uses Toyota’s hybrid synergy drive, (renamed of course)
Blasphemy!
Okay, now that I have that out of the way… I am very curious to see how Subaru implements its hybrid system and preserves full time AWD. Of course, we don’t know the details of this, but if I was a purist, I would think Honda’s IMA system would make sense, with the electric assist directly supplementing engine output. Not sure how Prius-y bits would affect the packaging and low center of gravity.
I do wish Subaru would put Start-Stop into all of its North American cars, as it does for Australia. Not that I would want to hear my Subie start up again at every traffic light.