Subaru has revealed its first ever battery electric car, the Solterra. Jointly developed with Toyota, it shares its platform, battery and a high proportion of its body components with the Toyota bZ4X unveiled last month. It takes the form of a compact hatch / SUV and is tasked with reviving Subaru’s fortunes in the European market. 

Like the Toyota, the Solterra will be offered with two drive layouts; front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive. In the front-drive version, the motor has an output of 201bhp while the all-wheel-drive model has two 107bhp motors mounted on either axle. As a result, the all-wheel drive model only offers 13bhp more than the front-drive car.

Like the Toyota, the Solterra is fitted with a 71.4kWh battery, although it’s not clear at this stage whether that figure refers to the usable capacity or total capacity. The car has yet to be WLTP tested, but under Japanese tests, the front-wheel drive version has a claimed range of 329 miles while the all-wheel drive version has 286 miles. Subaru will also offer a solar roof option, but has yet to put any figures on how much charge this can generates. 

The Solterra will have a maximum rapid DC charging speed of 150kW, which means that it should charge to 80% in under 30 minutes when connected to a 150kW unit or faster. Subaru claims a maximum AC speed of 6.6kWh, but this is expected to increase to 22kW given that Toyota has already announced plans to up the figure on the bZ4x.

In terms of launch dates, Subaru has confirmed that the first Solterras will ship in the middle of next year, although the Japanese market is expected to get the car first. However, given that Japan is a right-hand drive market like the UK, there’s a chance that the UK may be first in line for European spec cars. 

More details are expected closer to the Solterra’s official launch next year. 

Solterra shares its tech and elements of its design with the Toyota bZ4x