Subaru accelerates EV plans, confirms Panasonic battery partnership

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Subaru on Wednesday introduced plans to double the variety of EV fashions it can provide later within the decade, boosting it from 4 to eight. 

It’s a part of an accelerated intent to shift to EVs and hybrids, together with U.S. manufacturing, with a objective of fifty% of its gross sales to be absolutely electrical by 2030, up from a earlier goal of 40%. 

Subaru additionally seems to recommend that by 2030 it’s aiming for all (or almost all) of its lineup to be both battery electrical or hybrid automobiles, including as much as an anticipated 1.2 million automobiles or extra divided between Japan and the U.S.

Subaru 50% EVs by 2030

Subaru 50% EVs by 2030

These items collectively quantity to Subaru’s most essential product and technique bulletins in a decade. They had been referred to as out in a “Briefing on the New Administration Coverage.”

As a part of the Wednesday presentation, coordinated with a quarterly monetary replace, the automaker laid out its plans for manufacturing in Japan in addition to the U.S. In 2025 it goals to introduce each a next-generation hybrid mannequin and its first in-house absolutely electrical mannequin, with Japan-based manufacturing focused for 200,000 items per 12 months in that mannequin’s future. Round 2027 it can add a devoted EV manufacturing line at its Gunma complicated in Japan, finally boosting its EV capability by one other 200,000 automobiles per 12 months. 

Subaru EV and hybrid roadmap - August 2023

Subaru EV and hybrid roadmap – August 2023

Within the U.S., next-generation hybrid manufacturing will ramp up in 2026 or 2027, with U.S.-based EV manufacturing because of begin in 2027. 

Subaru referred to as out manufacturing as U.S.-based, not the “North American” phrases utilized by automakers aspiring to take manufacturing to Mexico. It additionally factors to a devoted EV plant in Japan, plus manufacturing revamped round Monozukuri Manufacturing innovation, a Japanese means of coordinating craftsmanship and manufacturing. It intends to restructure the way it builds automobiles, “all the way in which from the manufacturing construction to the event course of and product planning.”

Subaru accelerates EV targets - August 2023

Subaru accelerates EV targets – August 2023

What this may quantity to, Subaru summed, is 4 further EVs, versus what had initially been deliberate—for a complete of eight battery electrical fashions by the top of 2028. Subaru now plans a complete of 4 electrical SUVs, by the top of 2026, plus the 4 further EVs throughout the two years following that. 

A kind of preliminary 4 EVs is the Solterra, a mannequin that’s almost an identical to the Toyota bZ4X. Subaru’s enter went primarily towards these automobiles’ traction programs, however in lots of respects they really feel extra like Toyotas, so with its subsequent EV Subaru could really be setting the roadmap for a brand new technology of its automobiles. 

The one different plug-in Subaru for the U.S. has been the Crosstrek Hybrid, a plug-in hybrid that goes 17 electrical miles and will get 35 mpg mixed as a hybrid. It additionally borrowed extensively from Toyota. The Crosstrek Hybrid remains to be accessible for 2023 however is discontinued for 2024. 

2019 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid - First Drive, Santa Barbara CA, Nov. 2019

2019 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid – First Drive, Santa Barbara CA, Nov. 2019

The U.S. is by far Subaru’s most important market—nicely past its house market of Japan. Subaru produced almost 850,000 automobiles globally in 2022, and it offered almost 557,000 automobiles within the U.S. A big portion of these had been made at its Indiana plant, which has made greater than 5 million Subarus and greater than seven million automobiles together with Isuzu fashions previously constructed there. 

EVs at the moment quantity to about 1% of Subaru’s U.S. gross sales. It reported gross sales of lower than 3,000 Solterras within the first half of 2023. 

Panasonic batteries

Panasonic batteries

Subaru additionally earlier this week introduced a transfer that may assist backstop this stepped-up EV manufacturing. Like Mazda, it lately began talks with battery-maker Panasonic “to construct a medium- to long-term partnership to satisfy demand for battery electrical automobiles (BEVs) and automotive batteries in a quickly increasing market,” in accordance with the automaker. 

Panasonic Vitality will provide Subaru with “next-generation automotive cylindrical batteries” for these EVs within the latter half of the last decade at a number of websites. 


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