Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid PHEV is on the finish of its extension twine

The Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid plug-in hybrid has reached the tip of its charging twine. Subaru confirmed to Inexperienced Automotive Studies that there isn’t any plan for a Crosstrek Hybrid in its new technology, which made its debut Thursday on the 2023 Chicago Auto Present. 

The Crosstrek Hybrid launched for the 2014 mannequin 12 months as Subaru’s first hybrid, then turned a plug-in hybrid as a part of a redesign for the 2019 mannequin 12 months. Nonetheless obtainable for 2023, and presently in inventory at some West Coast dealerships, the Crosstrek Hybrid goes 17 miles all-electric and carves out a novel area amongst plug-in hybrids, reflecting Subaru’s nonconformist market proposition.

In plug-in hybrid kind, the Crosstrek has at all times been a really low-volume automobile, promoting nearly solely in California-emissions states the place ZEV mandates and their credit-based compliance system successfully require a sure ratio of plug-in fashions.

Which results in why the Crosstrek Hybrid resides on borrowed time. That function of regulatory compliance is now crammed by the all-electric Subaru Solterra, which joined the lineup for 2023, as the model’s first mainstream EV (not less than by Subaru’s phrases). The Solterra (the title is a mixture of the Latin phrases for “Sun” and “Earth”) is positioned in a crowded phase already populated by the Volkswagen ID.4, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Nissan Ariya.

2023 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid

Subaru has relied closely on Toyota to get electrified fashions into U.S. showrooms. The Solterra is carefully associated to the Toyota bZ4X; the Crosstrek Hybrid borrowed parts from each the RAV4 Hybrid and the Toyota Prius Prime, and it was seen as a challenge with important enter from Toyota.

On the time of the Crosstrek Hybrid’s introduction, Subaru hinted that given the extent of effort and funding from each corporations in getting the product to market, it could be headed to different fashions as properly. Given California’s plans since then to carry essentially the most significant incentives for 50-mile plug-in hybrids, it is possible these plans have shifted to different initiatives. So one other Crosstrek Hybrid alongside the strains of the outgoing model simply would not make sense.