Japanese car maker Subaru is planning to offer four all-electric crossovers by 2026, and will build a decided EV assembly line at its Oizumi plant as part of an accelerated switch to EVs.
According to a report in Auto News, CEO Atsushi Osaki says that the company plans to make 200,000 EVs a year by 2027 – welcome news for a company which, like other Japanese automakers, has been slow to move on EVs.
Subaru has strong links to Toyota. Its Solterra, Subaru’s only electric vehicle to date, is a rebadged Toyota BZ4X and still hasn’t been released in Australia.
Toyota’s BZ4x has been plagued with problems since its release and Subaru was also forced to issue a second recall in the US for the Solterra due to under-torqued hub bolts which could cause the wheels to fall off.
The commitment to a dedicated EV platform is sorely needed if Subaru wants to have any chance of surviving the electric vehicle transition. In the world’s largest auto market China, EVs made up 35% of all sales in March and analysts believe that EV market share in China could hit 50% by the end of this year.
Subaru’s commitment to build a dedicated EV platform is sorely needed to save the company. To date Japanese brands have little to offer the millions of consumers switching to EVs. In the first two months of 2023 sales by Japanese brands in China had dropped by a staggering 40% year-on-year.
Auto News reports that Osaki says that Subaru the Oizumi plant will add an additional 200,000 EVs per year to the Yajima plant which will take Subaru’s combined EV output to 400,000 by 2028
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