The 2023 Subaru Solterra Is an Electric Crossover for Adventures

This is the new 2023 Subaru Solterra, and it's a new electric crossover from Subaru. It may seem like a new electric crossover appears on the market every single week, and I've reviewed all of them. But now Subaru has one, the Solterra, and today I'm going to review it. This portion of the video was sponsored by Discovery Plus. Before I get started, I want to tell you about the new Discovery Plus Original Series Million Dollar Wheels. Million Dollar Wheels is an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat world of luxury car sales. Buckle up, this is about to get wild. He just said he hit a bump. He hit a bump. Million Dollar Wheels features high-end car deals with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Travis Barker, Tom Holland, and more. If you want to see how some of the most expensive car deals are done with Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Bugattis, Lamborghinis, and more, watch Million Dollar Wheels on Discovery Plus. All episodes are now available, and you can download and subscribe to Discovery Plus easily, and even check it out with a 7-day free trial. So click the link in the description of this video to head over to Discovery Plus, where you can stream all episodes of Million Dollar Wheels, available exclusively on Discovery Plus. Welcome to the game. Thanks to Discovery Plus for sponsoring that portion of my video. Now back to my regular content. So let's talk Solterra. Like I said, it seems like everybody has an electric crossover these days, and now Subaru has one. The Solterra is meant to rival the Tesla Model Y, the Kia EV6, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Volkswagen ID.4, and undoubtedly many others that are coming soon. And today, I'm going to show you just how it does. First, I'll take you on a thorough tour of the Solterra and show you all of its quirks and features. Then I'll get it on the road and drive it, and then I'll give it a Doug's score. All right, I'm going to start the quirks and features, the Solterra, with getting in, and that means starting with the key, which looks like a fairly normal modern car key, except it has this interesting button that says hold AC. If you press that, you can get the air conditioning system to turn on before you get inside the car, which is a nice feel. In a hot climate, you can get the AC working and cool down the interior before you climb inside. Kind of cool. But anyway, next we climb inside the Solterra, and the first thing you notice when you get in and sit in the driver's seat is the unusual location of the gauge cluster, like the speedometer and that sort of thing, mounted almost on the top of the dashboard rather than in a normal spot directly behind the steering wheel. Now, the benefit here is that putting it so high up almost puts it in your line of sight, so you don't have to look down beneath the rim of the steering wheel to see your speed or directions or anything like that. Instead, it's right where you're already looking anyway while you're driving, which is a pretty good idea. It almost functions like a heads-up display. The problem, though, is that in order to make this work, you have to look at the gauge cluster screen above the steering wheel, and that means the wheel itself can't be adjusted very high. And the problem with that is if you're taller like me, you might have trouble getting the steering wheel to clear your knees when you're sitting in the driver's seat. This setup does add some benefits for visibility of that gauge cluster screen, but it steals some knee room, and it can make it kind of tight at the bottom part of the steering wheel for taller drivers. But that interesting steering wheel gauge cluster setup is just one of many quirks in this interior. Another one is here in the center console, where you can see this storage lid is see-through with this kind of strange pattern of, like, boxes that let you see inside. That's because open it up, and it's your wireless cell phone charger. You stick your phone in there, and it'll charge while you drive, and then you can close the panel. But Subaru doesn't want you to forget your phone in your car, so they make it see-through so that you can look in there and remember that your phone is charging while you're driving. Kind of an interesting idea. And then we have yet another interesting quirk in this same vicinity, and that would be the gear selector, which is this dial in the middle of the center console. And it doesn't operate like you'd think. You get in, you twist it, but it doesn't twist. Instead, you have to push it down and then twist it to the right for drive, to the left for reverse, or just push it straight down, and then you're in neutral. Certainly a very odd gear selector, and park is accessed by a button on the top of the whole gear dial situation. And there's more interesting quirks to come in this interior. For instance, the dashboard is covered in cloth. You can see on the passenger side, the driver side, there's just a lot of patterned cloth here, which is not the material you normally expect to see on a dashboard. And then there's the glove box. There isn't one. This car, strangely enough, doesn't have a glove box, which is not something you often find in modern cars, but that's the case in the Solterra. No glove box at all. And next up, another interesting quirk in this interior is how you adjust the volume. You don't have a simple dial like in most cars. Instead, you have these buttons directly below this center infotainment screen. Over on the left, volume minus, on the right, volume plus. And so you tap, tap, tap to increase the volume with these center-mounted buttons. And next up, speaking of interesting controls and buttons in here, how about this one in the center console marked X mode, showing like a vehicle on a rough road. That activates the Solterra's off-road driving modes, and surprisingly, it has off-road driving modes. There are two. The first one is snow slash dirt, and the next one is deep snow slash mud for when you really get into off-road driving situations. Now, you look at this vehicle from the outside, you might think it looks like a fairly traditional crossover, but actually, its off-roading capability is a major selling point that Subaru is using to market this car, really one of the more capable EVs on the market. And those off-road driving modes help to drive home that point. It really can do a lot. And indeed, if you take a general look at the Solterra, one of the things you'll quickly discover is that this has some major benefits in the world of capability and adventure-ness, especially compared to other electric vehicles. However, it also has some interesting drawbacks in terms of just daily, simple, round-town usability. So let's talk about those adventure benefits first. I already showed you the off-road driving modes, which really do help to increase its capability and performance off the pavement. It even includes hill descent control, which can help guide you down a steep off-road hill, and hill start assist, which can help you get up a similar situation. But there's more to it than that. The Solterra also has standard all-wheel drive like most other Subaru models, but unlike most other rival electric vehicles at this price point, which usually come standard with two-wheel drive, not the case here, all-wheel drive standard And the Solterra also benefits from fantastic ground clearance. Subaru says 8.3 inches of ground clearance with the Solterra, which is way more than rivals. The Volkswagen ID.4 is around six inches, or about six and a half. You get all-wheel drive. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is like 6.1 inches. This at 8.3 inches is some serious ground clearance for some serious adventure. So it's pretty good off the pavement. And to really drive home the point of the Solterra's ruggedness, Subaru has given it some massive plastic fenders. You can see both front and rear. They are absolutely huge. The overall design of the Solterra isn't really all that controversial, just looks like a fairly standard crossover. But these plastic fenders have inspired some real debate because they're certainly a big design element of the car. Now, they're intended to make it look more rugged and tough and off-roady by giving these wheel arches some extra muscle. But in front especially, they're really just huge. So big, in fact, it takes up a large portion of the front quarter of the car, and it even goes into the side charge port door on the front fender. You can see this little panel here of plastic wheel arch sticks out so far that it goes into that little charge port door. And by the way, speaking of that charge port door, love the fact that it says EV on it for electric vehicle, mounted right there on the door. Same thing over on the other side in the same place, EV, because these days you got to tell everybody that you're driving an electric vehicle regardless of which side they're looking from. There's got to be something on all sides signaling that you've gone electric. But anyway, that's the plastic cladding on the side. Quite large. But anyway, regardless of what you think of the plastic panels on the side of the Solterra, it clearly has an advantage in terms of adventure capability, especially compared to other electric vehicles. But like I said earlier, there's also some drawbacks, particularly in terms of daily usability. One is performance. The Solterra comes with 215 horsepower and 250 pound feet of torque. Those are adequate numbers, but they're not really great. About on par with base models from most rivals like the ID.4, the Hyundai IONIQ 5, but those cars all have more powerful versions and this one doesn't. So performance isn't exactly huge. And then there's charge time. The Hyundai IONIQ 5, the Kia EV6 can charge from 10% to 80% in under 20 minutes. This takes about an hour to get to 80% charge. It just charges slower than its rivals. And then there's range. This version of the Solterra has 222 miles of range according to the EPA, and you can get a little more range if you get a base model with smaller wheels. But that's not that great compared to rivals. Most rivals are also around that figure for their base models, but they also offer versions with over 300 miles of range and this car doesn't, which is disappointing considering its adventure ethos. Yeah, you can go further off road with more ground clearance, but you gotta charge it a few times before you get there. So then you might be wondering, well, why even buy it? If range, charge time, and performance aren't on par with rivals, what exactly does it offer? Well, for one thing, capability, like I said, adventure, which is something that a lot of Subaru drivers are really into, and this provides it more than most rivals. And there's also pricing. Subaru hasn't yet announced pricing for the Solterra, but I suspect it's going to undercut most of its rivals, especially considering it has standard all-wheel drive. This comes in around $40,000 or a little under. It provides a pretty good value proposition even with some of the drawbacks compared to rivals because it'll just be cheaper, especially with standard all-wheel drive. But anyway, back to the quirks and features. And since I'm outside, let's talk about the exterior quirks, starting with the front trunk. There isn't one. You have a panel up here that looks like a front trunk, but you can't open it. There's no latch and there's no storage area inside. This is where the electric motor is and some other components, so no front trunk and no glove box. A few interesting demerits to practicality from a brand that's known for being practical. The other notable thing on the outside, at least to me, aside from the plastic cladding on the sides, is the rear window situation. One, the spoiler thing above the rear window, these two black panels jutting out, I guess they're supposed to be a spoiler, kind of odd design and rather distinctive. You also don't have a rear wiper with the Solterra. Subaru says that the angle of the rear window is such that it's almost like a sedan, so it won't get hit with road grime and debris like SUVs that are more squared off and back. And as such, it doesn't need a rear wiper. But anyway, next we move back inside the Solterra where there are more quirks and features. And I want to move on to technology and specifically this screen in the center, which is excellent. You can see very responsive to my touch. I move my finger around, it does exactly what I expect rather quickly. And it's also easy and simple and quite intuitive. And it really is a good infotainment system. My only gripe about this system is it can't really do two things at once. You have it on the map and you can't also have the radio being shown next to it like so many other cars can. You have to switch between those items to see different things, which is kind of disappointing, especially given the size of this screen. And speaking of that size, this is the optional screen in the Solterra, a little over 12 inches. The standard screen in the Solterra is about eight inches, so this is the upgraded version. But maybe more notable is this isn't Subaru's infotainment system. In fact, it's Toyota's. And that's because the Solterra was developed as a joint venture between Subaru and Toyota. Subaru has the Solterra and Toyota has a version called the BZ4X. The B is lowercase, the Z and the X are uppercase, rather strangely named. But anyway, the result is a lot of the interior is Toyota, including this infotainment system, and it works great. And you can find some other Toyota parts around here. For instance, the stalks coming off the steering column are very clearly Toyota stalks used in other Toyota models. And the gauge cluster screen is Toyota. This one, mounted high on the dashboard like I covered earlier, this is similar to what you get in a lot of modern Toyota models. And again, like the center screen, it works pretty well. Although here, I wish it was more configurable. You can't really change anything about the right half of the screen. Everything you interact with is crammed into the left part of the screen, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a full screen. It would be nice to be able to pull up like a full screen map and the radio rather than having so many fixed displays, but it's still a pretty good digital gauge cluster. But anyway, moving on from the Toyota stuff, and by the way, I'll be reviewing the Toyota BZ4X soon. One interesting distinction between that and the Solterra, you can get the Toyota with front wheel drive or all wheel drive while the Subaru is all wheel drive only. So that's the primary difference. But moving on from the Toyota stuff, I want to talk climate controls, which wonderfully are not integrated into the screen, but rather into these buttons below the screen, this electronic touchpad. And it's all pretty simple and easy to use. You also have these switches to adjust temperature, airflow, that sort of thing. Two interesting items in the climate controls. One, there's an auto setting for the heated seats and the steering wheel. So you go to turn those on, you can just flip them to auto, and then they will heat or cool depending on the ambient temperature, which is kind of neat. You also have this button to turn on the heated windshield. Now, you don't have a fully heated windshield in this car, but you do have heating lines underneath the wipers, as you can see here, which is a pretty cool idea. You get into your car on a cold, icy morning, your wipers are stuck to your windshield. Well, you press that, it heats them up, and then they won't be anymore. It's neat to have, and it further expands this car's appeal in kind of cold climates and all weathered situations. But anyway, next up, we move on to the backseat in the Solterra. And I have to say, it is quite large back here for adults, for children, for whoever you want to throw in back. I have knee room, hip room, leg room, head room. It really is spacious in back. This vehicle is only two inches longer than a Honda CR-V, but it feels a lot bigger back here, like a true midsize, almost large SUV in back. And this is something I'm noticing more with electric cars. You don't have to put an engine up front. You can expand the size of the passenger compartment, and that means more rear seat space, which is nice. Now, as far as quirks and features in the back, you don't really have all that much. You do have heated rear seats back here. You can see, tap these buttons, and they turn on. And you also have USB-C ports in back, which is nice for rear passenger devices, but not much else other than that. Although you do have a rear sunroof, which is cool. One giant panel of glass over the entire car, actually, although the drawback there is it doesn't open. Since it is one huge panel, you can open the cover to see out, but you can't actually get the glass open to get air coming in through the roof. So it goes. And finally, we move on to the cargo area in the Solterra. You pop open the tailgate automatically, of course, and you get into the cargo area, which is quite large, actually. That's a good thing since you don't have a glove box or a front trunk. You add a little practicality back here, although it's worth noting the cargo space is a little pinched on top because of the sloping roofline of this car. You get good floor space, good width, but a little less room than you might want on top because of that sloping roofline. Now, with that said, you can add a little extra space in here under the floor. You lift up this little loop and you can see a little extra compartment where you can stick smaller items if you want to, or you can just pull off this floor entirely and get a few extra inches of space below the floor for larger items in back, which is nice. Now, one other thing worth noting back here, you don't have any way you can easily fold the rear seats from the cargo area, which is disappointing. Obviously, there's price point not looking for a button to power fold the seat, but a latch would be nice. You don't have it, but they fold down easily enough. You go to the seat itself, you pull on this latch and the seat folds right down, giving you extra cargo space in back for larger items if you want to put them in. And finally, last item in the front of this car, I want to talk about its driver assist technology, which works quite well. You turn on the highway and it'll steer for you. It'll brake. It'll accelerate based on the car in front of you. It all works really nicely and it has a nice benefit. The steering wheel is capacitive touch, so you have to check in every 10 seconds or so and let the car know you're paying attention, but you don't have to jiggle the steering wheel. You can just rest your hand on it and then the car will continue to drive on, which is really nice. Drawback though, the system will not change lanes for you. Some in rival cars will, like the Ioniq 5, the Kia EV6, but the Solterra system won't change lanes for you. It'll just steer in your lane, but it does a good job of it. And so those are the quirks and features of the new Subaru Solterra. Now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives. All right, driving the Solterra. This is a rather interesting car. You got Subaru and Toyota creating this electric crossover and they look at the electric crossover world and they say to themselves, no, we're not going to make a high powered version that has amazing range. We're going to make one that we market as an off-roader. It seems like a weird decision on its face, but when you think about how Subaru and Toyota have been and where their successes come over the last couple of years, it kind of makes some sense. Toyota has done an amazing job selling four runners and Tacomas and other off-road vehicles for huge margins. That's what people are interested in right now. There's even an off-roader RAV4 that sells reasonably well. And Subaru has kind of the same level of success. Subaru has sold this cross track and done well with that. There's now an Outback Wilderness model, which is like an off-roader version of the Outback. People are buying these off-roader vehicles. And so I think Subaru and Toyota both kind of came to the conclusion, hey, instead of focusing on performance like everyone else has done, let's maybe try to focus a little bit more on ruggedness and kind of an off-road appeal. So they did. So how does it drive? I've driven all these now, the ID4, the EV6, the Ioniq 5, the Mach-E, I've driven them all. And I would say that this one is similar to the others. The real drawback here is unquestionably like the performance level. It's just not fast. It's not particularly fun. And that's totally fine. And it certainly is fine in the rivals, but that's because there are versions that have more power and give you a little bit more energy and excitement. And this car just doesn't have that. And it's a little bit disappointing to have the only version have 215 horsepower. It's just not really that strong of a number. And I think that automakers are, some automakers are still sort of living in the past where a not all that fast car was totally acceptable. And that's what people wanted and what they dealt with and was nothing. But now in the age of electric cars, more and more people are just assuming that their crossover is going to do zero to 60 in the four second range. And when you don't have that, people say, well, I can get a Model Y. I can get an EV6 with 320 horsepower or more. Why can't I get that in this car? People are kind of coming to expect electric cars to just have massive amounts of torque and power. But if you really truly aren't interested in the power and the performance, or if you want an electric crossover at a lower price point, this does have some pretty strong appeal. I mentioned the second thing because this actually is pretty competitive with sort of the lower powered versions of the Ioniq 5, the Mach-E, that sort of thing. It's almost like Subaru made a competitor for a base model and didn't bother to make the other versions. Now, a few interesting things about this car. Driving position is actually pretty good. You're sitting really high up for a crossover. And that's, I think in part, because of that extra ground clearance compared to some of its rivals. Oddly, the steering wheel is very low. Because you're looking over the steering wheel and over onto that gauge cluster screen, the steering wheel sits unusually low. And so your hands rest kind of low on it. And it's sort of a different driving position than you might be used to. Doesn't really take any getting used to. It's not uncomfortable, but it's certainly different. The top of the steering wheel is not the base of the windshield. It's lower than that, by a few inches. And it's certainly notable. And you have decent visibility in this car. More and more vehicles are lowering the amount of glass all around, that sort of thing. This car has a great camera system. It also has large mirrors and reasonably good visibility in glass all around. You can see a lot of stuff. And that's nice in this car. Now, it's not, like I said earlier, it's not really a particularly exciting car. That also translates to steering and handling. Predictable is the term I would use, but it's not exactly fast. You go to turn the wheel, you don't have that much incredible responsiveness. And obviously, when you're going around corners, you get some body roll. The suspension is tuned for comfort. It's just not there to let you really experience and have you go fast and have you have fun. That's not the point of this car. The point is to kind of create a basic and simple electric vehicle that also has some practicality and capability to take you on some adventures, which is neat. I think the real drawback of this vehicle is not the performance, but actually the range. Like I said before, yeah, it can go further than the Ioniq 5, the EV6, vehicles like that, in terms of off-road, off-road trails. But getting there requires electric charging. And this is also a slow charging vehicle. It doesn't charge up as quickly as its rivals, which coupled with the lower range is just kind of a disappointment. You're sort of limited to where you can go in the area around where you live, whereas an Ioniq 5 or an EV6, you can charge them up so fast if you find the right charger that it almost feels like a fuel stop. Overall, though, there's a lot to like about the Solterra, but it's going to depend a lot on price point. If this comes in at 40 or under, I think it's a very compelling vehicle at that price point, especially with standard all-wheel drive. If it's more than 40, it starts to get hung up in some of the Ioniq 5, EV6 stuff. And with those vehicles, you can spend just a few thousand more and get way more power, and more range, which is compelling. But I think it's generally pretty good. Despite being a Toyota, it's very Subaru, sort of a simple, practical, adventure-focused take on the electric car. And so that's the new 2023 Subaru Solterra. This isn't the fastest electric crossover on the market, nor is it the most luxurious. But like all Subarus, it's practical, simple, and capable, ready for adventure. And now it's time to give the Solterra a Doug's score. And the Doug's score is here, 54 out of 100, which places the Solterra here against other electric crossovers, ahead of the Volkswagen ID.4, but behind some of the sportier and more exciting offerings from rivals like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, and Kia EV6. Those vehicles will all surely cost more, though, at least the versions I reviewed, and I suspect the Solterra's success is going to be entirely down to pricing. It has disadvantages in power, range, and charge time, but it can overcome them all if it's affordable enough. Close to $40,000 would do it.