2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid: Real-World Fuel Economy

We looked at the Subaru's before buying our Prius a couple weeks ago. I just could not get over the required all wheel drive. We just don't need it, don't want it. I knew it would just be more moving parts to fix, and it would have to impact MPG. MORE happy with our Prius!

 

They're pretty reliable ... cheep ... and as for extra weight of awd, they could have gone the route of the hyhi - just have the rear axle used as on demand electric. Oh well - it's rev 1. Maybe the next rev will step it up. It certainly got better for the Prius on round II.
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It's a mild hybrid system of a car that wasn't designed for fuel economy. It's the off-road version of the Imperza. It has more ground clearance which is bad for aerodynamics, and likely all terrain tires with high rolling resistance.

Maybe electric AWD would help, but it might not have the battery reserves for it. It would add to the cost. The Escape hybrid still managed a better improvement with the non-hybrid AWD system in place.

 

Then you simply are not in their target market. Shop elsewhere, as you did.

AWD has been their niche for quite some time, since before the turn of this century. When we bought our first Subaru, it was because of the AWD and ground clearance. For buyers not wanting this feature, Subaru simply came up a bit short of Honda and Toyota on cost and reliability.

My household's 'fleet' (three vehicles) still includes a single Subaru. The rest are Honda-Toyota.

 

If you live anywhere it snows - Oregon, Washington State, Washington DC, Virginia, New York, etc. - you know that a 2-wheel drive car is practically useless during the winter. This is when you wish you had a 4-wheel-drive vehicle like the Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid.

 

Had a lot a snow this past winter in Pennsylvania. I was able to get around with just FWD. Didn't even have snow tires. Just the OEM ones most owners hate. The AWD system on the CVT Subarus is a 60/40 split to the front. AWD may have been better, but you pay for it all year. The gas savings of a Prius would more than cover the cost of a set of snow tires mounted on steelies.

 

In Japan, the fuel economy kings for 4wd cars are the 4wd Honda Fit/Jazz Hybrid and the Outlander PHEV. Oh and some 660cc kei cars.

Real world, drivers are reporting 13.2 km/l for the XV Hybrid. That's at Japan speeds, of course, which aren't high. For fuel economy for an SUV, that's not much better than Toyota got with the Harrier Hybrid (the Lexus 400h) seven or whatever years ago. The 400h is also much bigger, much better equipped, and, as a nice bonus of Subaru fans, much faster, at least in a straight line.

I see a couple of orange XVs every day and it's a cool looking car, but I'd far rather have an old 400h.

 

I'll say it again... the Subaru is inexpensive (as well as reasonably reliable). There are tons of Subarus in Montana. Being one of the poorest (and frosty winters) states in the nation - that's why the Subaru is so popular there.
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That would be a severe overstatement. Most routes here are navigable with just decent tires and decent winter driving skills. Because half the drivers possess neither, and AWD / 4WD is not a sufficient substitute, the main beaten paths get closed early, before AWD becomes essential.

But AWD does add more capability for those going off the main paths. I come from a land where the F250 is king. There were numerous times dad had to come get me. Sometimes even an F250 with chains on all four is insufficient, so we'd have to bump up to a crawler tractor.

Now that age has reversed roles and I need to go get him, the Subaru AWD will get there the great majority of the time when a normal clearance 2WD can't. And when AWD isn't enough, it will at least get me within snowshoe distance of his F250 and tractors.

 

Back in my AMC / CJ5 days, we had a saying. "2x4 trucks equipped w/ a posi are trumped by 4WD because 4WD goes 10% further - before getting stranded"
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Not really, having worked on several WRX's and other subaru's over the years. The only extra moving parts are a rear driveshaft, rear diff and axle. If you buy an automatic, there is also a center diff. Unless you do alot of towing and hauling, none of these components go bad for the life of the car. There are exceptions, but when's the last time you heard someone blow a differential on a low HP car?

That's not true at all, when these were released, the forester and XV were class leaders in fuel economy. They actually got more mpg than the FWD versions of the Escape, CRV, Rav4 etc...... The problem is, you don't know or understand the layout of a subaru. They use a boxer engine, whose flywheel faces toward the rear of the vehicle like a v8 car. Attached to that is a transmission which has a rear axle and 2 front axles. The rear axle goes to a rear diff that makes a 90 degree turn to power the rear wheels. The front axles are 90 degrees with the transmission and powers the front wheels. So at any given wheel, there is only a single 90 degree turn to power it. This makes for an incredibly efficient drivetrain whose efficiency is closer to a FWD than a FWD based AWD system as seen on something like a Rav4. This also makes everything symmetrical, there is no bias to any given wheel. On a fwd based AWD system, some wheels are powered after several 90 degree turns and some go through less turns to make it to the wheel. This leads to bias due to different lengths and diameters of shafts and sprockets etc....

But when you look at the class, i still don't understand how you can say a subaru is so bad in the fuel economy department? For any CUV, it gets better fuel economy for AWD vs AWD, and matches the competition in FWD vs AWD.

The 2015 legacy gets 36mpg highway, whereas an altima gets 38mpg highway. That's a 5% difference. If you commute like me and drive 15k miles per year, thats like an $80 a year difference in fuel costs.

The reason why subaru's were terrible in mpg's for so many years was because they didn't update the engine and transmission much in 20 years. They've been using the same engine and transmission from the early 90's up until 2011. They made small updates to the engine in the mid 2000's, but for the most part, it has been the same outdated design. In 2011 they introduced a new engine in the forester, and in 2012 for the impreza.

But going back to the Electric AWD vs the subaru setup with the motor sandwhiched between the engine and transmission. Electric AWD plain sucks. You can't sustain power output to the rear wheels, and the traction control turns on to limit overspin and overheating of the motor. Ask any lexus or highlander hybrid owners, those vehicles simply don't go in the snow. If you look at the xv crosstek, when it was first reviewed, motor trend took it to Iceland, they were in some really deep and rediculous snow.

Read this article:
2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid First Drive - Motor Trend

The AWD on subaru automatics is 60/40 split to start, but can go to 50:50 lockup very quickly. The manual subaru's are all 50:50 split.

I also live in PA, and do a ton of snow driving. I go to work regardless of weather conditions. Most people simply call off. The other point is whether you live in the country, the city, or the burbs. In the city and the burbs, you're probably ok with FWD because the plow trucks come often and frequently, they also lay down plenty of salt and granite. Also, if you are traveling during the day, the snow is softer and mostly cleared from other traffic and plow trucks. In this case, FWD may be ok, though you'll struggle on certain hills.

Me however, i leave the prius at home because i have michellin energy savers, and the traction control on the prius sucks. So i fire up my subie and it just goes like stink. I also live in the country travel at night often. The plow trucks sometimes don't even operate out here during the night. Also the frequency at which they plow the same road is far and fewer between in the country. I've passed tons of FWD cars trying to get up hills. I even drove through a foot of snow in someone's yard because i got tired of waiting for a ford focus to get up a hill, i literally waiting about 10 minutes. After dropping my son off at the babysitters, i came back and he was still there, roughly 20 minutes later. I got out, and strapped him to my hitch and pulled him up. His tires were in good condition, it was just a really steep hill that hadn't been hit by a plow truck yet. I think with a set of dedicated snow tires he could have made it up, but not with all seasons.

At the end of the day, i love my AWD, and simply won't live without having an AWD car for the winter. But that's because i have to venture out in the snow, and i choose to live in the country because i love it out here. If you don't live in a hilly area like the suburbs or the city, then you can get by just fine with a good set of all seasons on a FWD car. But don't try it where i live.

 

Just a sanity check on sales
September 2014 Dashboard - HybridCars.com
sales for year to date

6805 Lexus RXh
6307 subaru xv hybrid
2441 Toyota Hylander hybrid

15,245 Ford c-max hybrid

98,216 prius liftback

The subaru seems to do fairly well compared to the LRXh/HiHy, but really doesn't get much market share. A electronic plug in awd built in a dedicated hybrid could do much better. The outlander phev is not on a dedicated platform, but should outsell these other awd hybrids in the US when it is available in 2016.

The cute ute or crossover market really is primed for a dedicated awd model. Most people never go off road in these vehicles but want them to handle well in mud and snow. The c-max energi might be a good platform is if were lengthened to decrease drag and increase cargo volume. Add on a rear motor, and with that big battery you can send a lot of power to the rear axle when it slips. Toyota could try crossing the rav4 with the prius v for a body, then add a 8kwh or so, a plug, and a rear motor.

 

Thanks, I did not understand that. Those years of not upgrading on Subaru's part left me with the impression that they weren't efficient. Plus, AWD and 4WD are always rated lower than their 2WD counterpart. Now, if Subaru left their engine in transverse alignment for a hypothetical FWD model, there wouldn't much gain, possibly even loss, in fuel efficiency over the AWD.

This is just opinion, but it seems to me many professing to need AWD really don't, and that this need is just an outgrowth of the 'need' that got thousands to buy a SUV. For decades, Subaru was the only company offering AWD on cars, and it wasn't only standard. Some of the German makes and few models of note may have had it, but for improved corning performance as opposed for drivability in harsh weather.

I had suspected that the battery SOC could limit the system's effectiveness, but wasn't curious to search the info out. Of the first gen Highlander and Escape hybrids, the Escape was better rated for offroad driving in a comparison article. It does use the same, traditional AWD system that is in the ICE only model, but there are footnotes on Toyota's site about not using the Highlander offroad.

First, I wish more people and employers would be reasonable about bad weather and just would call out. Outside of emergency response and medical and infrastructure critical ones, no job is worth the time and risk of driving around on unplowed roads. At least the people with totally unnappropiate cars, like a Mustang or BMW with summer tires, should know to stay off the road.

My commute is from upper Bucks to outside Philly. It is in no way flat. I have to wait until a road trip down South to check the Scangauge speed setting against a GPS, because of all the hills and curves. The bad snow last season tended to happen around the early rush hour, and because so few called out, the plows weren't able to actually plow. Any preemptive brine spraying was overwhelmed by the rate of snowfall. Then our new director comes from Illinois, so was less likely to close or delay opening due to weather. If this season ends up as bad, I have plenty of sick time.

The traction control system on the Prius sucks. I understand it is better than what I had on the gen2, but there are situations where you need to be able to turn it off. I can with my current car, but I think I would have been in trouble with the old Prius last year. I actually enjoy driving in snow when there is no traffic, or idiots out. Safely, transversing snowy roads comes down honestly know your, and your car's, limits and not to push them.

Back to the OT. I was unimpressed when the CrossTrek's hybrid numbers at first. After seeing numbers for the new, Rav4 based, Lexus hybrid, they gained a positive light.

 

That's a bold statement. I've lived in Chicago for my entire life. It can snow here. A lot. I've been just fine with every one of my seven two-wheel drive cars and trucks. There were some days a 4WD would have been better, but I've never required one to get where I was going.

 

Yea, i've spent a good deal of wrench time under subaru's, mostly WRX's, working on my own and friends vehicles. I'm very familiar with all the parts, they are nearly identical from the 90's all the way up to 2011.

Subaru would have to scrap their beloved boxer engine to go with a FWD setup. They could simply pull the rear axle and plug it and just use what they have to provide a FWD vehicle. But efficiency is negligibly less than 5% by adding the rear axle, most people would rather have the Awd. The $80 per year savings is not worth it for me, why not just have AWD.

There is a difference between "Want" and "Need". People need a vehicle, most can go through their whole lives with just a small or midsize sedan, a trailer hitch, and utility trailer like i have on my subaru. The only reason to get a truck is to pick up mulch or stone, which you could just pay a little more to have delivered.

But people don't want what they need. They want what they like, and personally i fully understand why the Ford F150 is the number one selling vehicle in america. There are several trucks in my family, and i love driving them. The tall ride height, the wide body, the cavernous crew cabs, and the large bed to through whatever you want into it. Modern half tons are far more comfortable on a highway then any midsize economy sedan. Driving a truck feels like driving a large cadillac, so smooth, no cabin noise etc....

As for AWD vs FWD(with snow tires). That's a personal preferance. I love my AWD, but i fully understand i can "get by" just fine with FWD and snow tires. However, i love drifting and romping around in the snow, you just can't have anywhere near as much fun with FWD. For me, you are just "getting by" with FWD in the snow, whereas with AWD, you get pissed and start cursing at all the FWD people that are having a little trouble in certain areas and are impeding traffic until they get some traction. I certainly have no issues with traction, it simply just goes and goes. Overspeeding and sliding a little is a different story, but i can normally give it more gas and let the back end kick out. When i drove fwd cars until i bought a subaru, i would pull the ebrake to kick the back end out a little. Took some practice, but i certainly mastered snow driving.

 

As for the XV crosstek hybrid. The electric motor is way too small. They had a size constraint and it's basically like the honda IMA. It's nearly worthless because it's so small. Subaru would need to redesign the transmission and install a larger 100hp electric motor into the vehicle. Personally i think if they left the crosstek hybrid the way it is, use the sandwiched motor as a generator/starter motor, and used a wet clutch to disconnect the rear axle from the system. Install a 100hp+ electric motor onto the rear diff/axles. They would see much higher mid 40's mpgs. But of course, the cost of another electric motor, larger battery pack, and larger inverter unit would put them over $30k starting price, and would price them completely out of their class. It would be a hard sell to spend $7k to go from 33mpg to 45mpg. But it would be the ultimate hybrid AWD.

 

Up to the mid-nineties, AWD was optional on Subarus, but they had the boxer since the beginning. 3 of the 4 Subbies owned by people I knew were FWD.

The $1000 difference for the hybrid doesn't seem worth the price for a 2mpg improvement, but it is getting a 4mpg bump in the city rating. So it might be worth it depending on the daily drive. The 38mpg combined is higher than the projected 35mpg for the upcoming Lexus NX300h. Granted the NX has a larger improvement over the Rav4 it platform shares with, but it will have a Lexus price. With the Escape hybrid gone, I can't think of any other crossovers/SUV hybrids in that size range.

I would like to see Subaru offer this hybrid in the on road Impreza.

 

If subaru had a luxury brand, and could justify the price of adding a larger electric motor and battery pack. I'm sure we would have seen a 40+mpg true AWD vehicle instead of the XV crosstek we got.

The lexus NX300h is most likely hampered by all the extra weight from the sound deadening and larger tires. Much like the ct200h lexus which is essentially a prius with 10 less mpg.

The latest confirmed and potentially on the table is that the 2016 prius could have AWD. My guess is it will most likely only be an option on the prius plug-in model, which could sustain power to the rear wheels in foul weather driving.

 

Compare Side-by-Side

Just to correct the mpg figures
subaru 30/34 31 combined
Lexus 33/30 32 combined

YMMV, and which one you use less gas on will depend on your driving route. The NX all optioned out with awd will be around 4200 lbs, teh crosstrek 3500 lbs which probably means the subaru will be better off road, but most lexus drivers won't take the vehicle off road.

I expect the Lexus NXh to eat into the RXh and Toyota HiHy sales. It just seems like the better mpg (about 4) and lower price will more than make up for the smaller vehicle and lower power. We will have to wait until people drive them though. I expect that NXh if its a well made car should get to the 10,000+ hybrid a year club.

Subaru hybrid IMHO may sell to those already loyal to subaru and 4 mpg city might be a good trade off. Highway mpg didn't change at all because you can't really downsize that ice. I would say the hybrid is a good addition to subaru's line, but it won't help them grow market share.