Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid To Appear in L.A.


The stereotypical Subaru customer has always been overly concerned with Johnny Polar Bear, so it’s been a bit of a surprise that the company hasn’t had a plug-in hybrid offering in their lineup.
That changes next year, with the introduction of the 2019 Crosstrek Hybrid. Subaru must be employing a few wizards in the engineering department because despite the new hybrid producing less power and weighing more (a lot more), the company is claiming the electrified Crosstrek is a full second quicker to sixty than the standard car.
It’s a tough claim to figure out, at least for this decidedly non-engineering minded human. If someone else has a different take, please chime in.
Subaru says the hybrid will make a total system output of 148 horsepower, with the gasoline engine good for 137 horses and 134 lb-ft of torque, peaking at 5,600 and 4,400 rpm respectively. The electrified bits are said to contribute 118 horsepower and 148 lb-ft of twist. Its curb weight bends the earth to the tune of 3,726 lbs.

Compare those stats to the standard car, a unit which weighs as little as 3,113 lbs. Its 2.0-liter fuel-swiller makes 152 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 145 lb-ft of torque at 4,000 rpm.
Armchair bench racers will point to the inherent ability of an electric motor to provide peak torque at almost zero rpm as the reason why the hybrid version outscoots the gas-powered car. This is certainly true, and Subaru points out in the spec sheet that the motor generators provide all 148 lb-ft of torque from rest to 1,500 rpm. Still, it’s tough to imagine such a marked improvement in acceleration given all that extra weight. We look forward to driving one and experiencing it for ourselves.

Electrification comes from a series-parallel plug-in hybrid system combining gasoline engine and two electric motor generators. The 2.0-L boxer-four remains on board, as does the Lineartronic CVT which integrates the motor generators in this application.The hybrid battery is a 8.8-kWh lithium-ion unit that can be fully charged in a couple of hours using a 240v power source. It’ll take five hours from a standard plug.

Digging into the spec sheet reveals the hybrid has larger rear brake discs than the standard car, 11.2-inch vented units vs 10.8-inch solids, perhaps to handle the extra 500 lbs of largesse. Ground clearance is the same (a remarkable 8.7 inches, the Suburban only has 7.9) but approach and departure angles are slightly affected if you care about that sort of thing. Notably, cargo volume shrink from 20.8 cubic feet to just 16.9 cubes.

Priced at $34,995 plus $975 for destination and delivery, the 2019 Crosstrek Hybrid will arrive at dealers later this year.
Images: [Subaru]
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- Keith Maybe my market's different. but 4.5k whack. Plus mods like his are just donations for the next owner. I'd consider driving it as a fun but practical yet disposable work/airport car if it was priced right. Some VAG's (yep, even Audis) are capable, long lasting reliable cars despite what the haters preach. I can't lie I've done the same as this guy: I had a decently clean 4 Runner V8 with about the same miles- I put it up for sale around the same price as the lower mile examples. I heard crickets chirp until I dropped the price. Folks just don't want NYC cab miles.
- Max So GM will be making TESLAS in the future. YEA They really shouldn’t be taking cues from Elon musk. Tesla is just about to be over.
- Malcolm It's not that commenters attack Tesla, musk has brought it on the company. The delivery of the first semi was half loaded in 70 degree weather hauling potato chips for frito lay. No company underutilizes their loads like this. Musk shouted at the world "look at us". Freightliners e-cascads has been delivering loads for 6-8 months before Tesla delivered one semi. What commenters are asking "What's the actual usable range when in say Leadville when its blowing snow and -20F outside with a full trailer?
- Funky D I despise Google for a whole host of reasons. So why on earth would I willing spend a large amount of $ on a car that will force Google spyware on me.The only connectivity to the world I will put up with is through my phone, which at least gives me the option of turning it off or disconnecting it from the car should I choose to.No CarPlay, no sale.
- William I think it's important to understand the factors that made GM as big as it once was and would like to be today. Let's roll back to 1965, or even before that. GM was the biggest of the Big Three. It's main competition was Ford and Chrysler, as well as it's own 5 brands competing with themselves. The import competition was all but non existent. Volkswagen was the most popular imported cars at the time. So GM had its successful 5 brands, and very little competition compared to today's market. GM was big, huge in fact. It was diversified into many other lines of business, from trains to information data processing (EDS). Again GM was huge. But being huge didn't make it better. There are many examples of GM not building the best cars they could, it's no surprise that they were building cars to maximize their profits, not to be the best built cars on the road, the closest brand to achieve that status was Cadillac. Anyone who owned a Cadillac knew it could have been a much higher level of quality than it was. It had a higher level of engineering and design features compared to it's competition. But as my Godfather used to say "how good is good?" Being as good as your competitors, isn't being as good as you could be. So, today GM does not hold 50% of the automotive market as it once did, and because of a multitude of reasons it never will again. No matter how much it improves it's quality, market value and dealer network, based on competition alone it can't have a 50% market share again. It has only 3 of its original 5 brands, and there are too many strong competitors taking pieces of the market share. So that says it's playing in a different game, therfore there's a whole new normal to use as a baseline than before. GM has to continue downsizing to fit into today's market. It can still be big, but in a different game and scale. The new normal will never be the same scale it once was as compared to the now "worlds" automotive industry. Just like how the US railroad industry had to reinvent its self to meet the changing transportation industry, and IBM has had to reinvent its self to play in the ever changing Information Technology industry it finds it's self in. IBM was once the industry leader, now it has to scale it's self down to remain in the industry it created. GM is in the same place that the railroads, IBM and other big companies like AT&T and Standard Oil have found themselves in. It seems like being the industry leader is always followed by having to reinvent it's self to just remain viable. It's part of the business cycle. GM, it's time you accept your fate, not dead, but not huge either.
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The acceleration difference, if it indeed is as they claim in this press release is due to the difference in the area under the curve in engineering speak. Peaks typically don't mean that much though a CVT does increase their importance. Because their peak outputs don't align you get a bit of a double hump curve that has more area under it that the single peak you get out of an ICE by itself. The battery pack's max safe discharge rate also comes into play. The fact that they say that the electric motor has the same torque from 0-1500 rpm indicates that they are limiting the current to the motor until the rpm is high enough that enough back EMF is generated to limit the current.
"The stereotypical Subaru customer has always been overly concerned with Johnny Polar Bear, " Maybe concerned with appearing to care. Until very recently Scoobie mileage was atrocious.