Check this out : New Outback will be a truck!!

GM's influence, I suspect.

I don't think Subaru understands or cares that a lot of their customers don't want to be driving a car classified as a light truck, which by the way, also means that it does not have to meet the stringent safety standards, as well as emissions standards.

Nice, huh!

You ought to read, if you haven't already, the article in the recent New Yorker about how unsafe SUV's are despite their appearance and the conventional wisdom.

Subarus are not engineered for the American market. The Outback as a cross-over SUV/Car concept was a modification of the existing Legacy by Subaru of America.

As much as I would like to see Subaru spearheading the development of more economical and environmentally friendly cars, it is unreasonable to expect that a company of this size and market share would develop another subcompact line with its own engine only to satisfy such arbitrary legislature in the US.

Fact is, that Subaru doesn't offer either a 15mpg gas-guzzler or a 45mpg Civic to make up for the former. What they suffer from is the relatively small number of their offerings, not below average fuel economy.

I'd like to see a modern Subaru subcompact with a 1.7l and AWD - not just to meet the EPA requirements but because I think it's appropriate and healthy for the environment as well as the company.

florian

The problem with that from a sales point of view is that there is much less $$$ to be made with a new subcompact, at least in the US - there is a huge perception that bigger is better, and SUV's are where it's at. It's really sort of sad - every review harps on how much space they have, how big the engine is, how awesome they are off-road (we won't even get into how many of them are actually used for that...) etc. - and the bigger and more powerful, the more of the "in" vehicle it appears to be... the new "luxury vehicles" are now the SUV's and even trucks (take a look at the 4-door Toyota Tundra)...

Subaru may be being honest about the features they want to offer - and with so many other car companies offering a car-based SUV, they probably figure why not them, too... in all honesty, since they play in so many markets with more or less the same cars, I wouldn't expect too many changes.

I feel like a little bug on the road in my WRX around here (a very fast little bug, though :-) ) - it seems that 70% of what I see on the road is a truck or SUV, and each year they seem bigger than before... but the roads aren't any wider, and the parking spots are getting smaller... I don't get it.

Nonsense. A couple of years ago, a Buick rear-ended my '91 Jeep while I was stopped at a stop sign. As I was walking back to view the damage, I was horrified. I expected a lot of damage to my Jeep similar to that on the Buick. Wrong!

On the Buick, the radiatior was pushed back and leaking, both headlights were smashed, and one fender was pushed back. It was undriveable.

On the Jeep, I had a cracked lens on one stop light and the fiberglass around the lock of the hatch was broken, and there was some cosmetic damage on the bumper. After the police investigation, I drove off, the Buick was towed.

The insurance costs to my Jeep were $750, paid in total by the Buick driver's insurance company. They replaced the lock, which was broken, repaired the fiberglass, repainted the hatch, replaced the bumper ( I suppose they couldn't fix the cosmetic damage. ) and replaced the cracked lens.

They may have totaled the Buick as it was an older model. Otherwise I have no clue.

BTW, this is my second Jeep. And I also have a second Subraru. My wife drives the Subaru and I drive the Jeep.

Al

Nonsense? I think the nonsense here is taking the cost of repair or the extent of exterior damage after a benign accident as an indicator of passenger safety. You should familiarize yourself with the concept of sacrificial crumple zones - I've seen a Mercedes hit the side of an older Volvo once and it didn't look good for the Benz. However, its driver probably didn't even hit the seat belt.

SUVs are potentially and relatively unsafe because their higher center of gravity combined with a suspension that is tuned for comfort increases the risk of rolling at speed. Where other cars would skid and spin, the SUV rolls over.

The ONLY thing that could potentially contribute to greater safety is the greater mass of the SUV that translates into a lower rate of deceleration IF you hit a smaller car. If you hit a concrete wall, you're just as toast.

florian

Al,

I have owned 3 jeeps (1955 Jeep Pickup,1968 CJ-5, 1980 Waggoner) and 2 Subaru's ( 1978 Subaru Yama Yigi Wagon, 1999 SUS) and while I loved my jeeps especially my CJ-5 I found it next to impossible to keep them repaired (the Waggoner and CJ-5 were purchased new). I applaud your perseverance I finally gave up on American and European cars despite performance and am committed to Japanese reliability.

Ron Donahue

Few people can stand a wimpy 2.0L engine in the US let alone 1.7L.

1.7Liter engine on a car that is close to $20k is a kiss of death. New hybrids do not sell wery well in here, fortunately. I think moving Outback into the truck category is a good idea to tell US car regulators "F^&* you" as most other car makers have been doing for years. Hello GM! Arguably Outbacks are mostly owned by the more affluent part of the US population and those people tend to keep them in good repair. Heck, I saw a gross polluter cruiser bike once. It was worse than a SUV. The stench was horrid. It was once in a lifetime sight though. One could argue that a lot of the pollution is due to the fact that there are poor people who drive old cars (and trucks, SUV, whatever) that merely pollute more behause they are, ehm, old. I don't know how other states manage the problem but California is pretty good at removing some of that old crap by having to have cars >5 y.o. have smog checked. I also understand that there are ways to get around this and I know some people who actually did. In any event I should tell you that will all the monsterosities you see on the American roads the air quality is nevertheless much better than in some parts of the world where 99% of cars on the road are sub 1.5 liter tin cans.

Nothing wrong with that. Most front wheel drive cars are a piece of garbage. I hardly see any Americans driving them. Mostly they're suld to the unsuspecting immigrants who have been living here for a short time.

Some people in the US have a lot of money to burn and they spend them on cars and gas. It's a free country. Too bad we'd have to breathe the aroma once those vehicles start to deteriorate and move into the gross polluter catergory.

In short. Let people drive what they want even if that's 2 ton crappola from GM.

Nothing wimpy about the Honda 1.7 VTEC or the Mercedes 1.8l Kompressor engines...

Fortunately for whom?

Yea, agreed.

Dunno, maybe on the west coast the sea breezes and the strict California emissions limits help, but in many urban areas of the US, the air could be a lot better.

I give you that, I.E. in former East Germany, the little 2-strokes were polluting disproportionally. But then, not many ppl could afford a car there anyways...

florian

One could argue that these companies have a lot of R&D dollars to make their low displacement engines efficient. Besides, it's my quick google search revealed that 1.7 VTEC from Honda produces meager 114 ft.lbs of torque. Hardly respectable number especially considering that Civic weighs what 2400? less? Impreza weights close 3000 pounds. You could also argue that the expected service life of the 1.8L engine from Mercedes is not known and on average turbos have been considerably less reliable than conventional engines. Did anyone calculate what toll on the environment does it take to produce a car? You have the fumes from the paint going into the atmosphere. It takes gobs of energy to produce aluminum for the engine, etc.

Top hp & torque figures look good on spec sheets, but it does not mean that the cars outfitted with them are fun to drive. I think those top figures are the biggest lie on the spec sheets. Because one might assume that they are useful since they are included. But they really are not anymore. They're are there for people who are too stupid to understand that a car is much more than a peaky engine (be that VTEC or whatever). People who buy Subaru seem to understand that fact.

You could argue that you can make improvements that you can space gears in transmissions better and do other improvements to decrease power losses in the drivetrains to improve 0-whatever times. But by the same token you can do so on cars with higher displacement engines and, once outfitted with better trannies they'd leave the low displacement competition in the dust.

Fortunately for the bulk of the US drivers who don't like to wait forever for their car to accelerate.

As I said. Pollution is mostly a question of what people can afford to drive and maintain. That and removing from the roads old crap whose owners can't keep emissions systems working properly. Something that they fail to do in the third world.

Go Subaru! Screw the US legislators paid by Detroit. And last, but not least: f&$* Detroit and their lobbyists in the Washington DC!

It's a respectable engine for a car the size of a Civic. I wasn't suggesting to put one in a Legacy, I was merely wishing for Subaru to compete with a car in that market segment.

Yes and no. We'll have to wait see how this particular engine doe, but turbine life expectancy has been increased though higher manufacturing tolerances Plus the turbine is a serviceable part. You wouldn't trash your Benz if the turbo started whistling, right?

agreed 100%

yep.

In theory, at least, an electric motor blows the pants off any combustion engine in terms of low RPM torque. Regenerative braking, an old idea, has only recently become economically feasible. Q: Why doesn't Subaru jump on that?

Beats the concept of accelerating 2.5 ton of automobile for a few seconds only to convert that massive kinetic energy into heat at every red light.

Looks like you've got a lot of F*&^%ing to do! :)

florian

Anyone who thinks they don't accelerate needs to go rent one. I can

*always* be the first one away at an intersection..and no problem whatsoever quickly changing lanes at 70 mph. This is a myth that they don't accelerate.

LC Toyota Prius and '00 Outback in the family

It looks like the B9SC looks to use the torque advantage of electric motors at low RPM. None of the automakers have brought regenerative braking to their concepts as best i can tell. This leads me to believe the technology still hasn't been perfected, not to say they aren't working on it.

"

" Stu

According to what I googled up 0-60 times for Prius are in excess of 13 seconds.

The 04 Prius does it in 10 secs. Good to average for compacts:

Subaru Impreza 8.3 sec.*  Hyundai Elantra 8.4 sec.*  Toyota Corolla 9.7 sec.  Saturn Ion 10.0 sec.  Honda Civic 10.2 sec.  Volkswagen Jetta 10.2 sec.*  Volkswagen New Beetle 10.2 sec.*  Scion xA 10.7 sec.  Chevrolet Cavalier 11.0 sec.  Nissan Sentra 11.0 sec.

(*manual)

Forester XT 6.3 sec. No smoking or use of electronic devices during takeoff.

I've come close to trading in my Forester for a Prius. I do enough driving that double the fuel economy is a HUGE feature. So when is the Ford Escape hybrid coming out? Come on Subaru!

You must be so married and old that you have enough money to pay for gas anyway. Otherwise I could not possibly see how gas accounts for more than 20-30% of your car ownership. In the latter case you save a whopping 10-15% by switching to Toyota Wimpo. I suggest you get your receipts for the last year and do a simple math. If you're living outside the US I rest my case.

Btw, how does Toyota Wimpo depreciate? Did anyone here sold or traded one in for a Sub and care to comment?