Posted Monday, November 15, 2021 at 9:39pm
For a car brand so closely associated with the great outdoors, Subaru Corp. has been weirdly slow to cash in on environmental friendliness. In the U.S., its biggest market by far, the Japanese automaker offers just one partly electrified model, the plug-in hybrid Crosstrek compact SUV. Even that is listed on the company’s website as having “limited availability.”
So Thursday’s unveiling in Tokyo of the Subaru Solterra, its first fully electric SUV, feels like an important development. Possibly that reflects my living too long in the Northeast with a brief stint on the West Coast. However, it also manifests a change in the mindset of a segment of the global auto industry that has lagged behind in the gathering race toward electrification.
