Next-gen Subaru Forester's hybrid system will come from Toyota

LOS ANGELES — The hybrid system that will arrive in 2025 as an optional powertrain in the redesigned Subaru Forester will come from alliance partner Toyota Motor Corp., the latest in a string of collaborations between the Japanese automakers as they attempt to traverse an evolving electrified product landscape.

Subaru of America COO Jeff Walters — who had earlier introduced the 2025 Forester at the Los Angeles Auto Show — said the hybrid version, arriving "about a year" after production of the redesigned Forester starts in the spring, would be sourced from the automaker's larger Japanese partner.

"We haven't announced anything on the specs or performance yet; that will be coming down the road," Walters told Automotive News here. "But it will be a Toyota-sourced battery [and electric components] joined with a boxer engine."

Walters pointed out that the upcoming hybrid Forester won't be Subaru's first foray into the technology.

"There's a lot of work for engineering to get at it, but we've had a hybrid — the Crosstrek plug-in hybrid — that was a battery system sourced from Toyota," he said.

In August, Subaru CEO Atsushi Osaki laid out an aggressive electrification plan for the brand that will see a total of eight electric vehicles added to its lineup. Osaki said Subaru would build EVs in the U.S. from around 2027 and would sell some 400,000 EVs in the U.S. by 2028.

Subaru's first EV, the Solterra, went on sale in the U.S. last year after its launch was hobbled by a Toyota stop-sale on it and its sibling vehicle, the Toyota bZ4X. Walters said the next three EVs coming to the lineup would also be "alliance vehicles" like the Solterra, which is built in Japan for Subaru by Toyota.

Presumably, that would include a three-row, Ascent-sized EV crossover that is expected to be assembled at Toyota's Kentucky assembly complex alongside the expected Toyota bZ5X, though Walters declined to confirm the details. He did say the future product, including new nameplates, coming from Subaru is extensive.

"The product portfolio for Subaru coming over the next five years, between now and 2028, is the most full and robust product introductions that we'll have in the history of the company," Walters said. "It's never been more full or [have we had] more models coming than what we'll have coming over the next five years."

Asked about the need to produce EVs in the U.S. to allow customers to potentially qualify for the federal $7,500 EV tax credit, Walters said Subaru would follow its own strategy.

"Well, you can't count on the $7,500 credit; that's today's rule," he said. "I mean, we do want to produce [EVs] in the United States because that's good for us and good for business."