Subaru restyles its Forester. The SUV gains in driving assistance, on the other hand the electrification of its e-Boxer hybrid engine remains light.
The time for the restyling has arrived for the Subaru Forester , whose fifth and current generation was presented in 2018 and marketed the following year in our regions. The aesthetic evolutions of the SUV are discreet and focus on the front part. The lights and grille have been redesigned, as have the fog lamp brackets, whose three horizontal bars identify the “phase 2 ” Forester. The green “Cascade Green Silica” and brown “Brilliant Bronze Metallic” body colors enrich the catalog.
Improved driving aids
It is above all on active safety equipment that Subaru has concentrated its efforts. The width of the field of vision of the cameras of the EyeSight system has almost doubled according to the manufacturer. This improvement notably made it possible to integrate intersection recognition with autonomous emergency braking, and to combine lane keeping assistance with adaptive cruise control. In addition to the markings on the ground, the edges of the road and strips of grass are now recognized as delimitations. The car is now capable of performing an emergency evasive maneuver on its own, and the driver fatigue detector is performing better than before, according to Subaru. The Japanese firm also promises an optimized infotainment system, always displayed on an 8-inch diagonal screen and compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In another register, a new feature allows the X-Mode setting designed for difficult terrain to reactivate automatically below 35 km/h .
A hybrid SUV but harshly subject to the penalty
On the engine side, almost nothing changes. The four-wheel drive e-Boxer petrol hybrid engine is carried over with a 150 hp 2.0L flat four-cylinder engine combined with a 17 hp electric motor itself integrated into the Lineartronic CVT transmission. Subaru promises better responsiveness. The approximately 0.6 kWh lithium-ion battery would allow the Forester to travel 1.6 km in “zero emissions” mode at a maximum speed of 40 km/h. Already unflattering, these data are still far from real life, where it is almost impossible to drive on the sole strength of the small electric motor, as we have seen with the previous vintage. On the other hand, this hybridization does not even allow the Forester to escape the heavy penalty in France. With average CO2 emissions of 185 g/km for a combined consumption of 8.1 L/100 km officially, the vehicle will pay a minimum tax of €9,550 according to the 2022 scale
