Subaru Unleashes R1e Electric Car on New York

Benjamin Jones

ABG recently reported on the fact that the new Subaru R1e has recently been spotted tooling around the streets in New York City as part of an official trial in the US, which is an extension of the 40 (soon to be 100) car trial currently taking placing in Japan.

In light of this new development, I thought it would be prudent to show off some of the most exciting features of theR1e, beginning with the fact that it is an all electric version of a production car made by major manufacturers to be affordable and useful to average citizens (though these needs might be a bit different depending on the market).

It’s exciting enough in and of itself to see a major initiative from a major manufacturer (yeah yeah, the Volt, sure), but this car is pretty sweet on its own.

More after the break!

The test is taking place in Kanagawa Prefecture, where Subaru plans to set up 150 of its “fast charge stations” to complement predicted sales of 5k+ EVs in the next five years. These fast charge stations are different from normal outlets and can deliver an 80% charge to the R1e in just 15 minutes! At home the 40 kW lithium-ion pack requires 8 hours for a full charge.

The R1e’s lithium pack is good for 50 miles at up to 65 MPH, with its most impressive feature being a 10 year or 124,000 mile lifetime expectancy. This issue has troubled hybrids and EVs in the past, so this kind of durability guarantee is certainly exciting to see in a production vehicle.

For those of you who don’t know, the Subaru R1 is a small car that is well known in Japan and perhaps perfectly suited for EV conversion. It might be a little smaller than the norm in the US market, but we’re seeing more and more talk about importing these kei-class cars to the US so by the time it happens it might not be as revolutionary as it seems.

I’ll be looking forward to more news, for sure.