Gadgetory

at all wagon form-factor Subarus symmetrical all-wheel drive system and the legendary 2-liter boxer for with a hybrid twist could this be the most crunchy granola Subaru of all time let's hop behind the wheel of this 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek hybrid and check the tech now the interior should come as no surprise if you've ever seen or sat in a current generation Impreza because like I said it's basically the same vehicle inside we've got an interior that's nice it's not gonna convince you that this is a luxury vehicle but that's not really the point here what we do have is materials and a design that reminds me a lot of what Volkswagens doing right now it's simple its understated it's not gonna wow you but it's also not gonna feel really cheap when you touch it and that's a good thing at this price point in the center of the dashboard we've got the standard in a faux tainment system and it's not really gonna wow you but it does have a lot of good inputs we've got an auxilary input we've got USB and iPod connectivity we've got bluetooth for hands-free calling and audio streaming now at the top of the dash sport we've got our multi information display and that's gonna be a small screen up there that's gonna basically show you a variety of information about what's going on with your fuel economy and the hybrid system so we've got not one but three different fuel economy screens one's gonna be historic to are gonna be instantaneous we've also got the all-wheel drive screen that's gonna be on a lot of these current generation Subaru vehicles and that's gonna show you what your all-wheel drive system is doing but because Subaru all-wheel drive systems are symmetrical all-wheel drive full time it's pretty much just gonna show you that it can all wheel drive all time it's a pretty useless screen in this situation and then finally we've got an interesting screen it's the fuel savings scream and what that's gonna do is show you how much time your engine has not been running and then one of the benefits of a hybrid is that you're able to shut that engine down and run an electric mode every now and then and then also shut it down when you're idling so this is going to show you how long the end has not been running when you're behind the wheel and how much fuel you saved now under the hood it doesn't look very different from what you would expect to find underneath pretty much any other impressive plataform vehicle right here in the middle we've got our boxer 4 it's going to displace about two liters and it's going to punch out of either side so it's wide but not very tall that's gonna be made it would Subaru symmetrical all-wheel drive system that's gonna put power to all four corners now up front we've got also two batteries that's a little confusing usually only feed one under hood battery and one in the trunk battery but we've got three in total here I'm not really sure what Subaru is doing here and even though Subaru is frequently a partner with Toyota this hybrid system has actually been developed completely in-house by Subaru Toyota had no hand in it that probably explains why it's a little weird in between this engine and the all-wheel drive system is an electric motor that's been tared with a continuously variable transmission and that's actually going to give this car a fuel economy bumped thanks to a nickel metal battery pack that you'll find in the trunk fuel economy here it's 33 on the highway 29 in the city and that's gonna average out to about 31 miles per gallon now that average is only about three miles per gallon more than the standard XP part of that is because this vehicle is about 300 pounds heavier here we're looking at about 160 horsepower and 163 pound-feet of torque that's about 12 more horsepower than the standard XV and about 18 more pound-feet and if you wanted to have a little bit more fun with that extra power you could actually shift virtual gears with the paddle shifters you got sort of 6fo gears there but I wouldn't really bother because fun's not really the point here I've been able to cruise in pure electric mode at speeds about under 20 miles per hour you're in stopping to a traffic here creeping along at under 20 miles per hour you'll be able to take advantage of that easy mode to save fuel she won't be able to do it for very long it's not a very big battery on this thing but at highway speeds the CVT just sort of holds your rpms at a weird sort of droney level and so you kind of get this weird constant humming and it's even worse when you're trying to do is zero to sixty run the revs just kind of jump up to about five or six thousand rpms and they just hang there you don't really get that sort of status by shifting and of course you can shift yourself but they're fake shifts so why even bother and the transition from gasoline to electric power can be a little bit less than smooth and even though this car has about ten more horsepower than the standard XP it just doesn't really feel like there's a performance gain it doesn't really feel like there's a big efficiency gain and so it seems a bit like you're just paying an extra four thousand dollars for a car that's quieter when you're idling and has a hybrid badge on the outside now pricing your 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek hybrid is easy because they're Li two choices to make there's the standard model that starts at twenty five nine nine five and then there's a limited model that's going to add navigation leather and a power sunroof for about thirty thousand dollars either way it's a dubious sell because the advantages that you gain over the standard XV are minimal at best and if you're looking at a hybrid you've got the c-max and the Prius V that are going to give you a lot better fuel economy here the weird thing about this XV Crosstrek hybrid is that it kind of over complicates Subaru simple message so for my money I think I'd go standard XV or I'd get a real hybrid