Subaru has recently installed a large printer into its U.S. headquarters in order to press out millions of dollar bills that will result from the sale of this: The 2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid. I could go on about how ridiculous it is that Subaru has waited this long for a hybrid version of its non-Crosstreks, but what matters is that the Forester Hybrid is here, and it’s going to be everywhere very soon.
I generally don’t like the stereotype the types of owners who own certain cars, but there is a common thread among Subaru Forester owners. Typically they’re in a small family household, they care about sensible things like safety and snow performance, and they bought a Subaru wagon/crossover because a real SUV is just too thirsty. Again, it’s not always the case, but in general, I’ve always seen Subarus — especially Foresters — as cars purchased by sensible minds and not necessarily hugely enthusiastic ones.
Few things are as sensible as hybrid powertrains. They’re for folks who aren’t quite ready to take the full-EV step (for financial reasons or otherwise), but who just want a safe car that won’t beat them up at the gas pump. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is: This Subaru Forester Hybrid is going to be on every suburban street in America very soon.
Let’s get straight to the 194 horsepower mid-size SUV’s numbers:
With up to 581 miles of range on a single tank of fuel, the 2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid earns an EPA-estimated rating of 35 mpg city, 34 mpg highway, 35 mpg combined, which is an improvement of 10 mpg in city fuel economy. The 2025 Forester Hybrid will arrive at retailers nationwide in spring 2025, starting at $34,995 MSRP.
Hot damn! That’s a huge improvement. And a good price!
The base 2025 Forester costs $29,810, but given that the hybrid is only available on Premium (which starts over $32,000), Sport, Limited, and Touring — it’s closer to a $3,000 delta. Subaru told me over the phone that if you factor in other standard features, the hybrid really only adds about $1,300, which would be an absolute no-brainer. In fact, let’s just look at some numbers.
Here’s the non-hybrid Forester’s fuel economy:
That $1,600 annual fuel cost for the non-hybrid is for folks driving 15,000 miles a year and paying $3.13 a gallon, assuming 55% city driving and 45% highway driving. If you were to plug the same parameters into the hybrid Forester, you’d come out to about $1,350, or a savings of roughly $250. If the delta is $3000 between hybrid and non-hybrid, that would take 12 years to pay off, but at $1,300 similarly-equipped, buying the hybrid would pay off in just over five years.
But $3.13 is cheap gas! Here in California, where gas is $4,50 a gallon, if you drove 15,000 miles a year you’d pay about $2,330 in fuel for the non-hybrid and $1,950 per year on fuel for the hybrid. That’s saving you about $380 per year getting ~35 mpg instead of 29. If we compare the two Premium spec models, the $3000 gap would go away in eight years, and if you consider the delta to be $1,300, the hybrid would pay off in 3.5 years!
That’s not even considering the drivability benefits of a hybrid or the joy of being able to drive longer without refilling. As you can see in the EPA screenshot above, the standard Forester will go 481 miles on a tank; the hybrid? 581.
This thing is going to sell like crazy.
All Images: Subaru
It’s just too bad that the Subaru has taken the design of the Forester down a very bad path for the last 15 years. I’d love to see Fuji Heavy Industries return to the simplicity and the elegant robustness of the original.
Other than the Toyota-shared BRZ and Solterra, it looks like this is Subaru’s first real foray into an all-digital dash, and the ability to display maps and CarPlay apps on it is excellent.
Lots of cars out there with digital dashes these days, but very few (VW/Audi for one) have the ability to display a full map right in front of you.
This will absolutely be a winner. Full disclosure: I’m a biased hybrid owner (2023 Kia Sorento Hybrid), a late convert (hated the Prius), but I think every car manufacturer with a brain needs to move to hybridizing their fleet. Imagine the fuel and CO2 savings when everyone is stuck in traffic. Can I please buy a hybrid Mustang convertible?
If we’re going to pay more for every new car, at least there’s a payoff of the delta down the road. I’ve put 21k+ on our Sorento, including a couple 3500+ mile long trips, where my range once hit 685 miles. I’m averaging 33.7 mpg overall, for a 4200 pound three row midsized SUV with AWD. Go figure. The smallish battery sits under the rear floor and takes up a bit of storage. The spare sits outside, under the rear.
It still has that whiny Subie CVT. Pass…
No it doesn’t. It has a eCVT like the 2-motor Ford, Honda, and Toyota hybrids.
An eCVT will still “whine,” in that the engine noise will rise on acceleration and stay at high RPM until the car catches up, like a boat motor. What makes that bearable in my Ford is that the cat is powerful enough to reach speed in a couple of seconds.
thats one fast cat
That depends on how Subaru programs their vehicle. I’ve had the new Prius and the 25 Camry as rentals and they are nearly as “whiny” as my old 2nd gen Prius or the 3rd gen that my parents have. The Honda Accord Hybrid simulates gear changes like a regular auto.
We will have to wait for some reviews to see what Subaru decided to do.
The hybrids have the eCVT, a totally different creature. That said, I have 225k miles on my ’13 Outback 2.5 with a CVT and after the first day of getting used to the transmission never shifting per se, it was never an issue. Same with my daughter’s Rogue. Both have done just fine in everyday use; no whininess I sensed.
The only whining I’ve heard from our Subaru CVT is from commenters in every Subaru-related article. Why not throw in something about the old head gaskets, too?
The CVT of the last couple of model years is much improved and I prefer it to the horrible jerky action of a VAG DSG transmission any day of the week.
Good to know. It’s been a few years since I test drove an Outback and a Forrester and I hated the sound of the CVT. Landed on a CX-5 which has been trouble free and bullet proof for 11 years now. So my info is dated and if it is the eCVT, then that is great.
My personal cars are are manual so I have no favour with any type of auto. I feel if you are going to choose auto you want one that is smooth and fuss free. There is a little bit of drone with the CVT when really pushed but the steps in the ecvt help resolve that. I say give it a go. Unless you are looking for sports car performance its a pretty good transmission.
Does this have Toyota’s hybrid tech or something they developed in-house? I would feel better with Toyota’s track record over consumer-focused testing car makers often use to their peril.
Toyota tech. While Subaru says they developed things in house it uses the basics of the Toyota 2-Motor hybrid system that has been used for 25 years.
A combination of a local no-haggle/no-ADM Subaru dealer and a large gas station with a large sign across the street will see these roll off the truck and off the lot with only a stop to slap the license plates and registration sticker on them. It’ll be easy to sell this over the non hybrid when the price of gas is visible from the sales floor. It’s $3/gallon right now. That’ll only go up in the summer.
Uh-oh. Nobody tell my wife or I’m going to end up with one to replace our current Forester. Since the only truly great thing about it is that it was extremely cheap and is now paid off, I’m not so sure I’d be excited to buy one at *checks notes*, $11,000 more than what I paid for one in 2018. That’s not including the 0% financing that was included either.
I was considering a wagon-ish sort of car that I need to be able to car camp in and only had the Crown Signa on my list, but I am considering this now since it doesn’t have that dreaded Subaru CVT.
Is Subaru moving away from CVT’s? That would be welcome news.
This is a 2-motor hybrid. The “CVT” is one motor/generator feeding electricity to the 2nd motor/generator. Same tech as used on Ford, Honda, and Toyota 2-motor hybrids.
…I am afraid it still has the dreaded Subaru CVT
Nope – it has a eCVT just like any Toyota 2-motor hybrid
I don’t think it is the eCVT, but that is based on the press release which sometimes…well mistakes happen with press releases.The press release says the Lineartronic CVT, which would be the old Subaru tech. I know the hybrid powertrain tech is heavily Toyota, but they mated supposedly mated that to their own CVT, since it plays nice with the Symmetrical AWD system.
It is a 2-motor hybrid. From Car & Driver:
“the Forester Hybrid is a series-parallel hybrid, which means it has a second motor that’s not tasked with direct propulsion. This second motor-generator acts as the starter, regulates the speed of the electronic continuously variable automatic transmission, and acts as a generator to refill the battery. The battery isn’t large, with a usable capacity of just 0.7 kWh, but that’s plenty for harvesting and redeploying energy in a hybrid context.”
Ah, also I read other details from Green Car Reports on how they integrated the Toyota eCVT with a larger traction motor, so Subaru’s own press release is wrong. Despite being newer, there are already RAV4 hybrids being used as courier vehicles, eCVTs out there with 300k+ miles and no issues, so it is robust.
I had wondered the same as you since the Crosstrek hybrid announcement too, it just labeled it as Lineartronic in that release. Figured it could very well have just a case of marketing and branding putting the name on it regardless of how closely it was related.
That is the most likely explanation. Lineartronic is Subaru’s trademarked name for a CVT and they likely don’t think their typical customer will care about the details.
My question is: where is the battery?
I cross shopped a CRV and looked at the hybrid model as well. The storage well under the floor at the rear is sealed and contains the hybrid battery – so you have to make due with a can of fix-o-flat because there’s no place for a spare tire. The Forester has a deep well for the spare and a jack under the floor at the back with room to store some factory accessories plus jumper cables, an air pump, the handy first aid kit they threw in for free, and a few other odds and ends – very useful. I was really turned off by the poor packaging in the CRV for the hybrid model, like it was all an after thought. I am not buying any car without a spare, especially one made for taking long trips.
Battery is in the spare tire well, there are several youtube videos that show this. Its so small it doesn’t even take up the whole space. But there’s no spare tire.