Subaru is killing off gas cars and will only sell EVs in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Subaru is killing off gas cars and will only sell EVs in Europe

electrek.co

112 pointstoomuchtodo67 comments

"Subaru is killing off gas cars and will only sell rebadged Toyota EVs in Europe."

Subaru was talking about an electric model over 20 years ago! I saw the concept drawings. Whoever has run Subaru for the last 20 years needs to be given a watch and thanked for their service on their way out the door.

The idea that Subaru could build a viable electric car 20 years ago seems like a stretch. Many other companies may have had electric car concepts that were scrapped because they could neither figure out how to build them, nor was there a strong market for them.

Subaru is not a large car manufacturer. Toyota sells over 10x the amount of cars and Nissan sells 3x-5x, they are not equals. And Nissan did build an electric car 16 years ago and the company is currently circling the drain.

It was never going to be a jump straight to EV (although the concept car model type still doesn't exist to this day), they knew the path was to go hybrid first. They've made some weak attempts at hybrids but they have fallen so far behind in EV development at this point that they soon will only be selling rebadged Toyotas. There's no way that's sustainable for an auto manufacturer.

Subaru's EVs are not simply rebadged. They are based on Toyota designs and use Toyota software, but Subaru does more than rebadge them

I wouldn't call it sustainable, but Subaru can persist for quite a while without an EV platform. Their main markets are the US (72%) and Japan (11%), neither of which have significant EV penetration. They are, and will continue to be, a bit player worldwide.

EV development also gets easier every year as it becomes more common. Companies don't have to have cutting-edge technology to compete, and Subaru has plans to release their own EV platform in 2029. I do not expect it to be cutting edge, but loyal Subaru owners won't be expecting that either.

For reference, Subaru had "plans" to release an EV car back in 2005. Let's see if they finally follow through 24 years later.

And their US market just happens to overlap with the EV early adopter market. Symmetrical all-wheel drive, the thing that snow drivers need, is easy peasy for an electric.

just a data point: i have a 2026 Subaru Uncharted, awd EV, and it's superlative.

For context, i had a 2014 BMW i3 for about 8 years, the design was neat, the engineering undependable, an Audi A5 for 2.x years, truly excellent and i loved it like my old used SAAB 900 turbo of long ago, and a BMW i4 xdrive40 for 3 years, truly shitty engineering, but pretty shape and paint job.

The Subaru EV does share components with Toyota/Lexus(/Subaru) but handles __way__ better than the BMW for 2/3 the price, has vastly nicer EV component design (like heat pump and periphery, which is outsourced by BMW and failed on both my i3 and i4).

It took 20 years of research and development to create an EV that can blow it’s head gasket every 50k miles as per Subaru tradition.

Hey now, my Subaru made it 90K miles before blowing the head gasket.

Gen3 Toyota Prius engines had head gasket failures too, haven’t both companies since resolved these?

Isn't this because of the EU's target of reducing CO2 by 55% by 2030 which is effectively an EV mandate?

> Known for its boxer engines, Subaru’s shift to an all-electric lineup is not necessarily by choice. Subaru Germany confirmed the news to Auto Motor und sport, saying the decision is due to the European Union’s emissions and driver-assistance regulations.

Yes.

Subaru the brand with the worst infotainment in the market is going all electric. That’s going to go well

If you're buying a Subaru, you're buying it because you value safety and reliability of the car, because your life/livelihood depend on it. You're not concerned about the infotainment system.

> If you're buying a Subaru, you're buying it because you value safety and reliability of the car

If I want that, why wouldn’t I buy Toyota/Honda?

To be fair, the Subaru Solterra is a rebadged Toyota bz4x, so I suppose you basically are buying a Toyota?

Well, historically Subaru hits a different market segment than Toyota/Honda.

This curious bit is that it was 'You want something between a Toyota/Honda and a Lexus/Acura, but closer to the capability of a Jeep'. Where it's more curious, is that the modern Subaru hybrids are actually better at off-roading than the new Jeep Cherokee hybrid.

Why is that? Well at least IMO it's cause Subaru sticks to their guns, their hybrid system sticks to what they have always tried to do versus the Jeep doing, at least AFAIK, the same sort of 'AWD' hybrid setup of most hybrids, where the rear wheels are electric only and you have to wait for the computer to decide to apply Any power.

Interestingly, The closest hybrid AWD design I'm aware of to what Subaru is doing, is Ford with the AWD HF55 on the Maverick, in that case they are doing it to also help make sure it can meet the needs for 4K towing.

It's not as efficient, but it is at last consistent from a branding execution strategy. Definitely moreso than Jeep who has watered down everything they sell so much it's... who knows anymore.

Stelantis turned Jeep into a lifestyle brand. They're milking as much money out of the brand as they can. I don't know how they think this will play out in the long term, but it seems like companies these days aren't thinking about the long term.

> but it seems like companies these days aren't thinking about the long term.

The last 'forward-ish' thinking thing that I can think of, was the partnerships with Mitsubishi (i.e. Eagle/DSM) and the GEMA engine. But even those didn't really play out as huge wins long term, versus, say, Ford doing the quiet-ish license agreement patent swap around hybrid tech.

Penta-Star as they used to be called in the 90s, well, back then they had the Neon which was surprisingly competitive [0] in the small car segment despite being a relative death trap and having reliability issues[1][2]. They had the Grand Cherokee which was honestly innovative as far as being a Rear-wheel drive Unibody thing that could still compete with a Body-on-frame platform as far as handling/offroading.

The Daimler merger doomed them however, between the various accounting tactics used and overall clash of engineering management styles between the brands. Ironically I will note that of all the things Daimler messed up over there, they did manage to not mess up Jeep that much

But Daimler gutted the other brands, and FCA was fairly not-useful around fixing that... They had the 200, but like everything else let it sit too long without updates... to the point where 7-8-ish years ago, my father wanted to buy another Sebring to replace his increasingly problematic Sebring, and I managed to find a Chevy Malibu of all things to try instead. My dad had purchased Chrysler products since before I was even born.

He has thanked me for suggesting the Malibu multiple times since, he still talks about the things he likes about it sometimes even though it's getting a little long in the tooth, lately it has been more of a "I know I probably should replace it but I don't see anything I want" [3]

(which is the best hope I can have as his son having to do a 'bruh' moment to his father, around a purchase consideration.)

> Stelantis turned Jeep into a lifestyle brand

IMO They only accelerated the process and it wasn't just Jeep. FCA had a mixed bag around 'lifestyle branding' management as well.

After the FCA bit, 'Dodge' started becoming more of a 'performance' brand with the Hellcats/Demon/etc and for a short time had the Base Charger/Challenger and every Avenger as a 'pretender' model and the Dart as a quasi-compliance-car [4].

RAM came about under FCA as the 'commercial/truck' brand, Ignoring the thing where every other domestic maker kept their mainline Trucks [5] under their normal car brand.

[0] - OG Neons had a horsepower extremely competitive with the JDM cars of the Era

[1] - But oh wait they forgot to drill all the head gasket holes to consistent depth leading to head gasket failures

[2] - That transmission was originally designed for cars making way less HP/Torque and from experience it's not fun to deal with the clutch packs failing when trying to get onto a highway.

[3] - I mean, Worst comes to worst I will try to suggest a Crosstrek Hybrid (new) or Fusion Hybrid (used) if it comes up via incidental.

[4] - For the unaware, a compliance car, is a car made by the manufacturer to help improve their overall fleet emissions/mpg targets.

[5] - Sure, GM has GMC, but that was more branding towards a specific age demographic than 'commercial vehicle' or 'truck bro'.

That's part, I think not to dissimilar from a jeep, people buy them for the "lifestyle". Plenty of people take them off road, but plenty also like the idea that they could go off road.

You are buying it for the gas powered awd system. Which is like the only thing they did well. They have zero advantage or brand value in the EV realm

in theory EVs would be ideal for off-roading. Low end torque and the ability to control the motors independently. I think something like the Mercedes portal axles attached to electric motors would be amazing.

Yes but that’s inherent to the platform and needs to be controlled really well with software which is not something the brand is good at. They had great mechanical awd systems that are not relevant to this type of design

They sell reliable cars with a good AWD system and drivetrain and decent ground clearance.

If they sold reliable PHEVs or even BEVs with 220mm+ ground clearance and some branding around torque and traction control, and they had any kind of advantage over Toyota in that niche, they'd probably do alright in the "I don't want a Land Cruiser BUT" market.

(Yeah, yeah, EJ head gaskets, just don't buy anything with an EJ series engine.)

No you're not. You're buying a Subaru because how awesome was the WRX STi and how they did in WRC! Naturally I speak for the motivations of all Subaru buyers and you don't. We can't know what reasons people do buy a Subaru, but people buying them because of awesome things professional race car drivers do in modified versions of their car has got to be non-zero.

As a 25 year Subaru driver, it's a bit of one and a bit of two. I have a safe ride in the winter and do a full Costco run, and I can book it down curvy dirt roads at unsafe speeds to indulge my inner rally car driver.

Even slow cars can get a bit sideways on snow and dirt.

I was actually shocked to find that Subaru in the US was this kind of safe, maybe outdoorsy brand. I had never seen anything but Imprezas inspired by WRC before I got here. Only boy racers drove them where I grew up.

It's also a popular car in the lesbian community.

Well I for one got so used to the CVT it's not even funny any more. Every time we rent a car we get a random non-CVT car and the acceleration behavior is just so funky in comparison, I can't stand it any more.

I stopped buying Subaru and started buying Toyota specifically for the reasons you listed and because Toyota (and Honda) make more reliable cars that hold their value longer. Used car depreciation curves tell the only story I need to read before purchasing a car.

Nowadays, a Subaru is just a cheaper Toyota.

Yeah, people who care about their safety must not care about infotainment system, maybe that's what Subaru leaders think.

> Since 2019, every new Subaru has come standard with both Apple CarPlay® and Android Auto™

https://www.subaru.com/vehicle-info/article/what-is-apple-ca...

Infotainement is more than just CarPlay.

I don't know if it's gotten any better, but I won't buy another Subaru after my 2020. It constantly beeps at me whenever the EyeSight can't see the lanes in the road, even when it's not steering for me. It's a safety hazard that pretends to be a safety feature.

Can't you turn eyesight off?

I can but I actually like the safety it provides. It just doesn’t need to loudly distract me every time it momentarily stops.

do you enjoying having to accept the popup disclaimer literally every single time you start the car? i sure do, love it, what a UX

Nobody has to accept that disclaimer even a single time. I never have. Most times its disappeared before I ever get a chance to have to do anything on the screen. I just start driving :shrug:

That disclaimer is both worthless and such an annoyance

even worse! why bother with it at all. really "fuck you thats why" levels of UX design.

Sounds more like either an actual compliance or preventative CYA compliance thing if you ask me.

If they think they need to show you this (for whatever reason, their legal department said so), then it has nothing to do with bad UX design but really, being in between a rock and a hard place. If my legal team made me do this, I'd also show it every single time, because you have zero guarantee that the person driving the car this time is the same person that saw and accepted the dialog the last time. Even if you think about "driver profiles", that totally goes out the window in a rental car scenario for sure and even in a non-rental one, not everyone that has a car that has "driver profiles" will make use of the feature.

So as a dev I would show this for whatever period of time legal required me to show it, to CYA for the above cases and then I'd just close it because I don't want to annoy people so much as to actually require an actual "click" on the accept button.

as a dev that presumably cares about the product i work on, I would look at every other car that somehow manages not to do this obnoxious useless thing, and argue till i'm blue in the face with my compliance folk that its a stupid ask. I might not win, but id sure try.

Im guessing its the opposite - the devs involved in this were probably outsourced (famously legacy car manufacturers do this, its all cobbled together external chunks), and didnt give a shit at all. Closed the jira task for compliance and moved on without a second thought. This is why Subaru and other legacy car companies make such atrocious UX.

And then there's the unexpectedly high cost if you ever need to replace your windshield.

Interesting how Infotainment crosses into EyeSight for you though. That's not at all what that means.

And yes it beeps and you can't turn the beeping off completely. It's supposed to annoy you into using the blinkers properly. Different cars/model years seem to have different levels of annoyingness in the actual beep and different volume settings available though.

My (also 2020) never beeps when EyeSight can't see the lanes, whether its steering or not. It beeps when you cross a line without blinking or you're crossing the lines and would soon be driving on the shoulder/into the trees. It does sometimes have issues where it beeps a bit too early, i.e. it seems the calculations from the visuals are a bit off in certain situations.

It’s the screen yelling at me so I consider it part of the same system. It’s not about the blinkers it just turns off frequently because there are poor lane markings where I live. Besides that the rest of the UI is slow and annoying. I can never remember which sub menu different annoying beeps are under. Carplay is much slower too than in other cars.

YMMV as always. I don't even notice the visuals. The lane change alerts at least in the two Subarus I've had that had EyeSight already have it on the main dash, i.e. the small screen not the big Infotainment screen in the middle console.

I don't get the "turning off because lane markings" comment tbh and we got some pretty bad ones here as well, especially in winter (i.e. often none at all :) Are we talking completely different things or did they change anything past 2024 models (last one I know)?

Coz EyeSight does not turn off just because there are no markings. It turns off if it can't see, i.e. too much rain, smudgy glass in front of the cameras etc. It doesn't care about the lane markings just to follow the car in front of me. But sure if it can't find the lane markings then I can't enable the auto-steering (which I find way too janky anyway - pretty annoying that it seems to steer left and right between the markings instead of holding steady in the middle and adjusting smoothly, so I never use it).

I can never remember where settings I touch exactly once to set them up either. For any car. Set it and forget it.

No experience with carplay but Android Auto support does depend a lot on the phone. My older Motorola and Samsung phone always sucked, often didn't connect at all with most cables. Since I got a Pixel, zero problems at all.

I’m just describing my experience as accurately as I can. I wouldn’t buy another Subaru.

I live on a narrow-ish rural road with no fog line on the shoulder, and drove a 2024 Outback. It definitely did this constantly. It was fixed in the 2025 model (no idea if it got backported to the older cars), and does it less, but still does it.

Btw if you've got eyesight it means you can buy comma.ai (not cheap) which is after market not quite self driving so it steers and gas/brakes for you.

(not sponsored)

I've got a 2020 XV (Australian Crosstrek nameplate) and it has relatively few annoying EU-mandated safety features.

It won't start unless I've done my seatbelt up, which is annoying when I'm e.g. driving in a cow paddock at 10km/h and trying to get through multiple gates, but it doesn't do lane assist or have a driver-facing camera or anything like that.

It's terrible to drive a Subaru with all their safety shit. Turn on the adaptive cruise, and change lanes when approaching a slower car? The Subaru will slam on the brakes thinking you're going to hit the car, even though you're totally clear of it. Really safe to slam on the brakes when merging into a faster lane.

Also, it locks onto cars taking the offramp... and as they slow down, you'll be in an empty right lane going 45mph. I've driven a 2024, and a 2025, and the 2025 has way less false alarms, but it still drives me crazy.

Oh yeah, and my favorite thing about adaptive cruise, is how you come to a stop in traffic, and the cruise control just turns off, but only after you're stopped for more than 15 seconds of so. Then it beeps at you telling you the car in front of you is moving. Thanks dickhead, how about you just accelerate and follow the car then like you would do if you only stopped for 5 seconds?

And not to mention, with the steering on, and my hands on the wheel, it bitches at me to put my hands on the wheel. MY HANDS ARE ON THE WHEEL. The only way to get it to realize your hands are on the wheel is to turn the damn steering wheel just a tiny bit, and let it fight back against you the whole time.

Total fucking garbage.

Not sure why this is being downvoted so hard. More than the ui ux experience the damn thing just freezes and needs to be restated regardless of the phone being used. Subaru outsourced their software and it shows.

Don’t worry, someone said they will be Toyota EVs…so the second worst in my experience. Improvement!

The first EV platform was a common design the wheels literally fell off it was so bad https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40827514/toyota-bz4x-whee...

I’ve rented a fair number of cars in the last year. All of them seemed equally bad to me.

Like I’m sure people will have preferences or pet peeve that effects one brand more than another other, but the infotainment systems just all seem uninspiring to me. Some do some parts better while doing others worse.

It would be unusual to get a Subaru rental unless you specifically asked for one. The issue with theirs is terrible input lag and random hang ups similar to Phones of early vintage

I’ve driven Subaru, jeep, Mazda, Chevy, ford, Toyota and ridden in the passenger of mercedes all in the past year.

Please name some cars that have standout bad/good infotainment because none of those stood out either way.

Or at least since you’re griping about what you think is a particularly bad one, name three good ones.

Tesla is probably best, Hyundai has a pretty decent one for a big manufacturer. I havent tried Rivian. Audi was ok. The rest are pretty mid, rental jeep one was really bad.

The Rivian infotainment is incredibly confusing for me. So difficult to find anything. I haven't been using it for a long time or anything, but figuring out how to access things like the AC temperature was super annoying. Everything is little icons and submenus and there's hardly any labels!

Also it's based on Google maps which I'm also not a big fan of.

I would never take the opinion of someone who says that Tesla's infotainment is best seriously. They're the pioneers of putting every essential car function on that damn screen, which is not only inconvenient but also a driving risk.

Regardless of the "everything on one screen" concerns, the one thing that Tesla indisputably does well is their infotainment screen is snappy. It's so incredible to me that cars produced this year still have choppy, laggy, or high latency displays. Even if the actual system is useful/thoughtful/well laid out, it makes the usability experience feel absolutely terrible. You don't want to use it if every tap/click/selection has a 1 second delay...

It’s not perfect but it’s still the best available. What’s better?

German source: https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/verkehr/keine-verbrenner...

(Subaru marketshare is already fairly small in Europe, but an interesting data point imho as global electrification continues)

Europe EV sales rose 70.3% in September, 32.6% of market share - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155291 - October 2026 (167 comments, as of this comment)

EV Sales Are Booming in Europe with Gasoline at $10 a Gallon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49870928 - September 2026 (150 comments)

Europe EV Sales BEVs Jump 50% & Reach 26% Market Share - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147450 - August 2026 (188 comments)

Tracking:

https://ember-energy.org/data/ev-sales-tracker/

https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?lang=en&freq=monthl...

https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

good riddance - subaru ICEs are mediocre at best, totally overrated fanboy junk

- a subaru forester owner who wanted to like the vehicle but is tired of oil leaks and counting the days before a head gasket lets go

I don’t think I’ve seen more than 10 Subarus in Europe.

Come to any rural and more or less mountainous region in Switzerland and you'll probably see more than 10 in every village ;)

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