Solterra

Eight days ago we leased a Subaru Solterra (manufactured by Toyota; joint-developed with the bZ4X). Incredible lease terms, a $7,500 credit (loophole), $8,500 discount ... 

Subaru Solterra Limited in Smoked Carbon

So far, mostly love it. This came with 157 miles on the odometer from the dealership, where it was charged to full and reported 247 miles of range); a week of normal driving later, it’s still at 70% charge with 232 miles on the clock. Being me, of course I’m tracking how closely the range estimates match reality with a Google Sheets spreadsheet, fed by a Google Forms interface for easy data input on the go. 

What I like

Overall, I really like this thing. The range is good (and so far, better than advertised). The price is certainly right. There are no really obnoxious blind spots. It has wirelelsss charging (Qi) that actually works, plus a USB-A port in the charging bay, plus 4x USB-C charging ports (two for the back seats). Wireless CarPlay that works well, no lags. The “11-speaker, 576-watt equivalent Harman Kardon® premium audio system” actually sounds really good, no cap. (Seems to be a pretty universal opinion.) This is probably the first factory sound system I haven’t felt compelled to upgrade at least some part of (I always intended to upgrade the speakers and amplification in the E46M3, but only ever replaced the factory Business CD with a slick Dynavin N7 Pro (IIRC).) It’s got good acceleration, has confidence-inspiring handling, the adaptive cruise control and Lane Keep Assist work almost as well as the rainbow road in the Teslas. There are actual controls for things like the turn signals, mirror adjustment, climate control, cruise control / stereo control, etc. Plenty of space in the back for the doggos. (There’s a rubber mat down already, and I’m thinking about adding a no-slip “puppy pad,” since Astrid’s been so prone to in-vehicle accidents lately. 😢) It’s reasonably quiet (certainly compared to my old Wrangler), the seats are comfortable. The interior is maybe a little cheap feeling, but, this is a Subaru, not a BMW or Porsche. It is what it is - an appliance conveyance with nothing I can really fault it for. Perfect. 

Charging

There’s an L6-30 240V outlet at the office I can use. The dual-voltage charger tacked on by the dealer (part of the “Solterra Limited Package” already on the Monroney sticker) has a 14-50P plug. So I picked up this $30 Parkworld 63272 EV Adapter NEMA L6-30P to 14-50R 1-Piece Compact Adaptor; I’d already gone into the Charging settings for the car and limited it to 16A (the options are 8A, 16A, and Max, which is 32A), but the adapter helpfully instructs you to manually limit charging to 24A. 

Frustrating: I have to limit the car to 16A every time I charge it, it always resets to “Max.” Time for a checklist, I guess; If I don’t do that, I’ll trip the breaker.

Even at that setting, I should be recharging at ~3.8 kW, so a 20-80% recharge should take around 12 hours. But since I don’t drive nearly that much regularly, I expect one day at the office will cover like 90% of my charging needs, at least until I can setup a 240V outlet at home (which will be a struggle, though one I will ultimately win).

(Interestingly, the Pipistrel Velis Electro all-electric airplane currently on the line at Proteus ran into a similar issue, where a 10-30R outlet was available at a destination airport, but the charger for the plane needs a 14-50R socket, leaving it essentially stranded until someone can fly up with an adapter.)

Charging via 240V outlet

Meanwhile, there’s also a gaggle of Electrify America high speed chargers, and a slew of much lower power ChargePoint connections, at a local mall, and of course Disneyland has EV chargers aplenty (and the charger location on the Solterra is so much more convenient than the one on the Teslas). PlugShare will find whatever’s local.

According to Toyota, these can be charged to 100% on AC chargers: “AC (Level 1 and Level 2): Go ahead and charge to 100%. Once 100% is reached, it will stop charging to help preserve the battery.” Rumor has it, too, the full 72.8 kWh isn’t available, rather, built-in buffers protect the battery from the effects of being actually charged to 100%, and 100% State of Charge (“SOC”) is actually somewhere around 64 kWh. I think I’m going to start keeping it topped off? (Meanwhile I’ve had it 12 days so far and I’m still on the original charge, with about 150 miles driven and 36% charge remaining.

Upgrades

Things I’m thinking about adding:

• Rear seat protector
• Dash cam
• Accessory mount
• Crossbars and bike rack; ski carrier
  

Quibbles

Meanwhile, a few relatively minor annoyances (some of which I’ve managed to eliminate with this $37 VCI J2534 Cable Fit for Toyota TIS Techstream - Latest Version V16.00.017, Firmware V1.4.8, Cable OBD2 Diagnostic Cable (which actually came with version 18.x of the Techstream software):

• The Solterra doesn’t have the ability to pre-condition the battery en route to a charger, like Teslas do. Not sure how much that will matter in SoCal with my normal routines, just an observation.
  
• The internal chiming when in reverse is nerve-racking. Who thought that was a good idea? Someone not dealing with squeezing into street parking while traffic impatiently stacks up / swerves around you... In Techstream, Customize / Warning / Reverse Buzzer Setting, change from “Continual” to “Mute” (can also disable seatbelt warning buzzers, which is nice, ’cause those are annoying and if you have dogs, there will be times...)
  
• Single pedal driving isn’t truly single pedal, like it is in, e.g., a Tesla Model 3. It won’t come to a complete stop, you need to hit the brake pedal.
• The car doesn’t auto lock as you walk away, like the Model 3. (I’ve gotten in the habit of tapping the lock button on the inside of the driver’s door, with the door open, as I leave the car, so, not a huge deal.)
  
• Using your phone as a key is possible but requires an $8/month subscription (free one year trial). Sigh. On principal I don’t want any functionality of my car tied to a subscription. (Looking at you, BMW.)
  
• When adaptive cruise control brings you to a stop in traffic, you have to hit RES+ or the accelerator pedal to get the car moving again.
• The cameras come up at speeds under 7 mph by default, replacing what was on the main screen. Just at the moment (stopped at a light) when you’re most likely to interact with that screen. This can be turned off by tapping this icon when that view is live
  
  

  

  Auto camera icon
  

• I’d love a volume knob.
• Some bits of the interior are distractingly reflective (like the silver strip on the front doors). But this doesn’t bother me as much anymore, so I don’t have any immediate plans to overlay it with carbon fiber tape or something like that.
  

Chuwi connected to the Solterra’s ODB2 Port

(As to the ODB2 interface / Techstream software, I used Oracle’s free VirtualBox 7.0.20 software (and Extension Pack) running under my Fedora 40 install on my Chuwi MiniBook X to setup a small Windows XP instance and used the 32-bit version of the software and drivers from the CD included in the package. (Since I spun up this XP instance only for this purpose, I didn’t care at all about the warnings folks were discussing regarding antivirus warnings, etc. I did have to tell the software it was talking to a 2024 Toyota bZ4X BEV, as it doesn’t “know” anything about any Subaru. Since all my laptops are USB-C only these days, I had to connect the VCI J2534 Cable via an Apple USB-C to USB Adapter.)