MY WEEK IN CARS
Steve Cropley
Solterra EV is twinned with a Toyota but its Subaruness shines through
MONDAY
It’s strange in our business how you can get so busy that you forget to drive cars. I mean, the one thing that’s supposed to feed our expertise is a greater familiarity than most with the gamut of cars on the market. In that spirit, at a recent Subaru event I asked to borrow the company’s one and only (for now) EV, the Solterra. It comes down the same production line as Toyota’s bZ4X, a car I’ve only driven a few miles, so I reckoned there was a two birds/one stone opportunity.
However, because it’s a Subaru, it comes only in dual-motor, four-wheel-drive guise, so the entry price is strong, at £50k-plus. You get more ground clearance, hill descent control and Subaru’s X-Mode traction control chucked in. The body cladding also hints at the businesslike capability of Subaru’s ICE cars – also appealing.