Subaru makes electric vehicles now. Well, it makes one EV—the Solterra crossover, in collaboration with Toyota. It's been a fairly long road for Subaru to actually get to this point, and it's not likely to announce anything soon like Toyota's onslaught of 15 new electric models. However, don't imagine that Subaru's totally ignoring the problem.
Much like Mitsubishi, which teased us with a Ralliart concept the other day, it's looking to motorsport to give EVs some muscular credentials. Unlike Mitsubishi, Subaru does actually still do things in terms of competition. Although its World Rally Championship days are over a decade into the past now, Subaru still competes stateside in rallying and rallycross, so when it says it's gonna try and bring things from that into its new concept—the STI E-RA—it's not a totally empty promise.
We don't know a lot about the STI E-RA except that it's gonna be electrified. Cryptically, all Thursday's press release promises is that it'll be shown at the exhibit, adding that it's "a new project launched with an aim of gaining experience and practice in new technologies in the world of motorsport which is making its way toward a carbon neutral era."
There's even a distant shot that it's a fuel cell vehicle, but that's obviously speculation at this point. It's a complete mystery which series it could possibly compete in, though it does look to be the shape of A Car. Subaru has released a picture of its booth for next month's Tokyo Auto Salon, though it's only listed five cars models will be shown there despite six being shown, two under wraps.
From left-to-right, above, is the 2021 BRZ GT300, the BRZ STI Performance, the WRX STI S4 concept car that Subaru's set to showcase, the Levorg STI Performance concept, and then the two mysterious dust covers. If the E-RA followed the Solterra then it'd make sense if it was the SUV shaped thing but otherwise, there's something very sexy and low-lying back there that could be a lot more what you think of when you think STI.
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