As both an EV owner (Chevy
As both an EV owner (Chevy Bolt) and an Outback owner, I applaud Subaru for finally jumping in with both feet, but I'm not sure they're ready for such a heavy lift by themselves. An Outback designed primarily as an EV would be ideal, but we've taken our Outback on road trips where the EV infrastructure is still very weak (around Glacier NP, for example), so having a PHEV or range-extender option would probably make more sense until the energy density/$ gets a little higher. A car the size of an Outback would need at least an 80 kWh pack (probably closer to 100) to get close to the kind of range current owners expect, and a pack that size at today's prices would be prohibitively expensive. So, I'm curious to see how they end up solving this issue. PHEV certainly works well enough for the RAV4 Prime, so that would be my bet. In fact, I'm surprised that there is still no Outback hybrid option.