Uncharted Territory
May 19, 2026
Alex KiersteinSubaru now sells three EV SUVs. Can driving two of them help make sense of the company’s EV strategy?
A while back, I was a little baffled about Subaru’s EV strategy. An updated Solterra shares a showroom with the longer and more powerful Trailseeker. There’s also the Uncharted, an SUV with a coupe-like roof. All three are based on the e-TNGA EV platform shared with Toyota models. All three have clear points of differentiation, but also a lot of overlap—particularly the Solterra and the slightly longer Trailseeker. All three have new-ish names in the Subaru universe, although the Trailseeker is sold as the E-Outback in Europe (which honestly makes a lot of sense). The Uncharted could certainly be an E-Outback Sport.
So, three EVs with a shared platform, three somewhat unfamiliar names, three subtle unique sales propositions. I wondered if it’d take some in-person time to suss out the identities of these vehicles. Luckily, I’d just gotten the vehicle list for a Pacific Northwest auto reviewer event known as Mudfest, and two of the three were on it. The Trailseeker and Uncharted would be available for a short road course and a modest off-road loop over two days. The perfect back-to-back comparison opportunity. (And I’d driven a pre-refresh bZ4X not too long ago, so the Solterra’s analogue was fresh in my mind.)
I approached the situation like a consumer. The two were parked next to each other, so I took a quick walk around them. There are Subaru badges and some modest styling differentiation from their Toyota siblings, but nothing essentially Subaru about the styling. Glancing over at the new Outback Wilderness alongside them, maybe that’s a good thing.
Of the two, the Trailseeker is more core Subaru, offering a genuine wagon-in-SUV-costume profile. It’s handsome, the longer flanks giving the significant creasing and curvature of the rear doors and fenders more room to stand out. The contrasting fenders work well; it’s a Subaru, you expect some cladding. And unlike a lot of EVs in which a low-hanging battery box is poorly hidden with some contrasting cladding, the curvature and texture of the lower sills makes the Trailseeker seem lither than it is. The bluff, plain fascia isn’t great in brighter paint tones like white, but the medium blue helps it blend in.
The longer wheelbase helps the ride, too, especially off-road—with the caveat that the off-road course was not an ORV park, but rather the sort of stuff you’d find on the gnarliest forest service road in the area. It was doable for car and truck there, but I think most light SUV drivers would turn around if they encountered such a road. The most informative part was a rutted, irregular grass road, which gave some of the SUVs serious head-toss. The kind of head-toss that makes passengers sick. The Trailseeker did well on that section, and didn’t have any significant traction issues on the rest, despite its mild all-season tires.
The shorter, squatter Uncharted didn’t do as well off-road, which is to be expected. It’s the most road-oriented of the three. And it was a lot of fun on-road, with punchy acceleration and decent (if rolly) handling. You don’t get into something like this and expect BMW M characteristics. Can you have fun in an Uncharted on a windy road? Definitely. It held its own against the Polestar 4, which handles better but is considerably more expensive. The Uncharted also has a rear window, no extra charge.
Giving the edge to the Trailseeker from an off-road perspective is a bit of an exercise in edge case quarterbacking, but after a few hours in both over two days, I think either an AWD Uncharted (yes, there’s a FWD base model; no, it wasn’t there nor would I expect the PNW to get many if any FWD allocations) or a Trailseeker could handle any normal consumer situation, with proper tires. You’d be more comfortable, and have a lot more room for stuff, in the Uncharted. As presented at the event, too, the smaller Uncharted was slightly more expensive, which is explained by trim and equipment differences, but raised an eyebrow. Normally, an equivalent-trim Trailseeker is a few thousand more than an Uncharted, as you’d expect. Even given the price delta, the Trailseeker seems like a superior value and a superior Subaru, despite its obvious Toyota roots.
Both the Trailseeker and the Uncharted come with optional squircle-type steering wheels, and despite being very polarizing among my peers I found it to be pretty innocuous. That said, I didn’t get a chance to parallel park the things on a hill in downtown Seattle surrounded by impatient drivers, so was it a realistic test? Probably not. I think you can get used to anything, and the wheels’ overall dimensions and thickness were perfectly fine.
Nothing at Mudfest convinced me there was anything wrong with these products being sold as Subarus. It’s a smart strategy, and maybe prescient, to share costs with Toyota, especially given the state of the EV market. And while I still think it’s strange to keep the Solterra in the mix, it does give three distinct price points with a small jump in between, rather than the large leap from Uncharted to Trailseeker.
I can tell you this, though. If I was in charge of vehicle marketing, I’d be frustrated that the vehicles are saddled with new and unfamiliar names. I think E-Outback is a good (if not inspired) name for the Trailseeker. Given the acceleration of the dual-motor Uncharted and the Trailseeker, a solid case could be made for reviving the Outback Sport (previously an Outback-ified Impreza wagon) for the Trailseeker and something like the Crosstrek Sport for the Uncharted. Claim they’re just as capable, but quick and fun. Certainly the EV powertrains are more fun than the FB25 and CVT in the regular Crosstrek.
But I’m fond of both. The Trailseeker, in particular. It’s exceptionally wagon-y, and the cargo area is immense. It’s spiritually a lot like the second- and third-gen Legacy and Outback wagons, tidy overall but capacious inside. I hope buyers can overlook a novel name and see the value in the longer Trailseeker.
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