Subaru Solterra review

The Solterra posted marginally slower acceleration benchmarks than its twin-motor Toyota sibling managed, though the differences were most likely caused by the effect of the widely varying ambient temperatures on both cars’ grip level and battery performance.

The Solterra needed less than seven seconds to hit 60mph from rest, and little more than six to get from 30-70mph, so still adequate for a mid-sized family car in 2023.

Roof spoiler promises rather more performance than the Solterra delivers, but no doubt cuts drag too. Squared-off boot aperture makes for a wide loading access point.

Matt Prior

Editor-at-large

The power always feels smartly delivered. It picks up with predictable briskness and immediacy but retains plenty of muscle even at motorway speeds. Overall, the car’s performance feels more assured than potent, exciting, enticing or even remotely characterful, and your reaction to it will depend largely on your expectations in those respects. Should a Subaru have a bit more charm about it than the equivalent Toyota? If you feel it should, the Solterra’s blandness might just leave you feeling disappointed.

You can select a one-pedal driving mode at the press of a button, and likewise toggle energy regeneration settings using the paddles mounted on the reverse of the steering wheel – so it’s easy to make the Solterra either coast or recapture the kinetic energy it’s carrying, as you need. Throttle response itself is quite progressive. Even on the road, this isn’t an EV that surges forward the instant you brush the accelerator. That makes it feel easy to drive, and does likewise off the road where managing the car’s momentum closely is more important.

The by-wire brake pedal has an acceptably well-reproduced semblance of progression and feel, and so it’s not difficult to slow or stop the car smoothly. During our emergency stop tests, outright stopping power felt slightly limited in strictly subjective terms, but the car’s recorded stopping distances were competitive.

Handling and stability

The Solterra’s suspension specification may be slightly different from its Toyota equivalent’s, but the driving experience on the road is very similar. This car handles with the kind of security and stability you would expect from a Subaru, and feels assured in almost everything it does. However, you wouldn’t call it involving, and there is little to keep you particularly interested in what you’re doing at the wheel, or to engender an appetite for more.

The chassis’s lack of any particular handling agility is plain even through Subaru’s downsized steering wheel. The Solterra corners acceptably well, of course, and communicates a little. Millbrook’s alpine test track obliged with a few icy patches of asphalt on the day of our test, and the chassis and steering combined to let the driver know exactly where they were, though it didn’t struggle to remain stable and true when crossing them.

Body control is respectable. There’s some pitch and roll but not much and it’s quickly checked, and there’s enough wheel travel to deal effectively with bigger inputs without disturbing the composure of the car too much. Damping is progressive but effective – and so, when you hurry the car through a series of faster corners, it remains fairly precise and stable.

In some ways, then, the Solterra does grip and handle at least a little better than its two-tonne kerb weight leads you to expect, but in other ways it doesn’t. The biggest disappointment, perhaps, is that a brand like Subaru hasn’t done more with motor calibration or torque vectoring to add extra poise and dynamism to the car’s cornering manners. The Solterra just gets through bends, rather than really engaging with them.