Safety & Quality
We believe in providing the highest-quality products and services for our customers. This high standard is central to our Love Promise Customer Commitment and prioritizes quality, safety, and customer satisfaction. Below we outline our ongoing efforts to improve our products and customer experience. See the Recognition for What We Do section for how other organizations view our efforts.
Subaru STARLINK®*
Subaru STARLINK helps us ensure that our vehicles are meeting a high standard of customer satisfaction. That is why we offer SOS Emergency Services, Roadside Assistance Enhancements, and Diagnostic Alerts in our vehicles. We provide a complimentary subscription with these features for three years from initial activation. In 2022, we helped 222,372 customers receive emergency services and support through STARLINK. We also provide customers with convenient maintenance reminders on vehicle touchscreens when drivers are safely stopped.
STARLINK further offers digital services to help our customers stay connected on the road. This includes access to downloading and streaming content, audio and visual data, and high-speed wireless services through in-vehicle Wi-Fi hotspots and other connections. Our multimedia services include voice recognition and large touchscreen interfaces to help our customers access their digital content safely while behind the wheel.
*Not currently available to residents of Massachusetts.
Driver Focus®
Our distraction mitigation system, known as Driver Focus, highlights our philosophy of addressing primary safety, active safety, preventive safety, and passive safety features. These types of safety features include a suite of safety measures that both the driver and the car can automatically enact. Through this initiative, we help minimize distracted driving with “eyes-off-road-alert” and “eyes-closed/drowsiness alert” features in select Subaru vehicles.
Pre-Collision Braking
Subaru is proud to be one of the early adopters of an automatic emergency braking system. Of our vehicles produced between September 1, 2021, and August 31, 2022*, 100% were equipped with automatic emergency braking. This demonstrates that we are ahead of the curve on imposing a 95% or higher installation rate by production year beginning September 1, 2022. This initiative was agreed upon by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and 20 automakers.
*According to the IIHS. Does not include manual transmission models. Under the terms of the voluntary commitment, automakers may defer equipping vehicles with manual transmissions with automatic emergency braking until the production year that begins September 1, 2024.
Rear Seat Reminder
Our Rear Seat Reminder feature helps children or pets from being left behind in our vehicles. Approximately 98% of our vehicles produced between September 1, 2021, and August 31, 2022*, are equipped with this feature, far ahead of the auto industry’s 2019 voluntary agreement that specifies a 95% or higher installation rate of these reminders by production year beginning September 1, 2024.
*These vehicles: MY2021–22 Ascent and Forester (standard on all model trims), MY2022 WRX (standard on all model trims), MY 2022–23 Legacy and Outback vehicles (standard on all model trims), Crosstrek (standard on continuously variable transmission equipped model trims), and MY2022–23 Impreza vehicles (available option on base trims; standard on all other trims).
Parts And Accessory Quality
Genuine Subaru Parts and Accessories are designed and manufactured with the same strict quality and safety standards as our vehicles.
Subaru Genuine Parts provide customers with peace of mind when their vehicles need repairs. They are manufactured to deliver the same safety, quality, and reliability that customers expect when they purchase a Subaru. Unfortunately, counterfeit products pose a significant safety risk to our customers. To protect the safety of customers, Subaru aggressively combats counterfeit threats through surveillance, collaboration with law enforcement, and participation in the Automotive Anti-Counterfeiting Council. Subaru focuses its anti-counterfeiting efforts on products that can cause the most harm to consumers. This past year, Subaru identified and took down over 10,700 e-commerce listings of non-Genuine Subaru parts that could negatively impact consumer safety.
Our customers demand the safest and highest quality products, which is why we carefully incorporate their feedback into the engineering decisions of each accessory in our vehicles.
To reach this high standard, we work with our suppliers to evolve toward the IATF 16949 quality management system and ISO 14001 environmental standards by performing quality audits, process reviews, risk analyses, and detailed monthly warranty reviews. New accessories suppliers are also required to be ISO-9001-certified to do any business with Subaru.
2022 Product Upgrades
Subaru Ascent
The 2023 Subaru Ascent was upgraded with industry-leading safety features. This included upgraded EyeSight® Driver Assist Technology, which uses multiple advanced active safety systems to act as an extra set of eyes on the road and, if need be, an extra foot on the brake. Available Automatic Emergency Steering, an all-new feature for the 2023 Ascent, helps avoid collisions by providing automatic steering and pre-collision braking support if it determines there’s enough space to intervene. Our DriverFocus Distraction Mitigation System is also now available for the first time in our Subaru Ascent. This features a Wide-Angle Mono Camera that gives drivers a 360-degree overhead view of the vehicle, which helps with parking and avoiding obstacles.
Subaru Outback
The new 2023 Subaru Outback features upgraded standard EyeSight Driver Assist Technology and Automatic Emergency Steering. The Outback also includes an Automatic Pre-Collision Braking system that alerts drivers and applies full braking force to help avoid or reduce the severity of frontal impacts under certain conditions. We also added Advanced Adaptive Cruise Control, which allows drivers to choose a safe distance between themselves and the car in front of them, to reduce the stress of everyday driving.
Subaru Legacy
The 2023 Subaru Legacy features state-of-the-art systems to help reduce distracted driving for both new and experienced drivers. The Legacy was upgraded with standard EyeSight Driver Assist Technology, which includes multiple advanced active safety systems to protect drivers on the road. We’ve also added Automatic Emergency Steering that can help drivers avoid a collision through automatic steering and pre-collision braking support.
Vehicles
Carbon-Free Society
We believe in supporting the global movement toward achieving the 1.5°C global warming limit target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That’s why Subaru Corporation (SBR) has set clear and attainable long-term decarbonization goals to help turn this goal into reality. SBR has also committed to a long-term goal of reducing CO2 emissions from new passenger vehicles. Our plan is to have at least 40% of Subaru global sales come from battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) by 2030. In addition, we’re aiming to apply electric powertrain technology to all Subaru vehicles sold worldwide by the early 2030s, while also reducing well-to-wheel* CO2 emissions by 90% or more compared to 2010 levels.
For more information on these decarbonization goals, please visit SBR’s Path to Future Growth and Environmentally Friendly Automobiles pages.
*Well-to-Wheel: Approach to calculating CO2 emissions, including emissions produced by the generation of electricity to be used by EVs and other vehicles.
Electric Vehicles
Derived from the Latin words “sun” and “Earth,” our first fully electric vehicle, the Solterra, is equipped with zero-emissions technology while maintaining the high standard of safety and a go-anywhere capability that Subaru is known for. The balanced design of Solterra’s Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive creates uniform stability and delivers an optimal distribution of power for maximum traction.
Find out more about the Solterra here.
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Subaru is committed to helping lower global emissions and is working to increase the production of our EV fleet. To fulfill our promise, we sold 2,215 plug-in hybrid EVs in the U.S. market in 2022, which have driven 88,160,243 miles in their lifetimes.
Hybrid vehicles helped Subaru owners save 3,147 tons of CO2 in 2022. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this is equivalent to:
gallons of gas consumed
homes worth of electricity used for a year
Emissions and MPG
We believe in building vehicles that protect not only the environment, but our customers too. According to the EPA, our fuel economy has improved by 0.7 miles per gallon and decreased by 8 grams of CO2 emissions per mile since 2009. This makes Subaru one of the most fuel-efficient car brands in the United States. The EPA has also shown that Subaru is one of the only automotive manufacturers to comply with national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards strictly on vehicle performance.
Life Cycle Assessment
We’re committed to measuring the durability of our products and fully understanding their environmental impact. Our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) helps us analyze our products and how they are manufactured, transported, used, and discarded. This is done through Subaru Corporation’s (SBR) LCA process to see which life cycle stages account for the largest amount of CO2 emissions and the necessary steps to reducing the product’s carbon footprint in the future.
Read more about this in our Environmentally Friendly Automobiles webpage.
We are also focused on properly recycling end-of-life Subaru accessories. In 2022, we partnered with Spiers New Technologies (SNT), a Cox Automotive Company, to ensure that all end-of-life Subaru high voltage batteries are correctly recycled. SNT’s proprietary process ensures that no hazardous waste is generated during the recycling process and helps recover and reuse more than 92% of materials in new battery manufacturing.
Low-Emissions Transport
We are committed to reducing our emissions when possible as we ship Subaru vehicles to our distribution centers. This includes heavily utilizing rail transport, which helped us reduce our transport-related emissions by approximately 60-80%. We have also made strides to reduce emissions produced by our transportation carrier for vehicles being shipped by sea to Alaskan retailers. We are now powering these carriers with liquified natural gas (LNG) rather than ultra-low-sulfur diesel or heavy fuel oil. Our sustainable transport initiatives had the following emissions reduction:
in CO2
in nitrogen oxides
in sulfur oxides
in particulate matter
Drivetrain Remanufacturing
Subaru is proud to remanufacture some vehicle parts, which benefits both the environment and our customers. We extend the life cycle of materials in our supply chain through a remanufacturing process of new and recycled parts, including replacing every seal and gasket, which fit and perform the same as new Genuine Subaru Parts that are installed at the factory. This helps lower costs for our customers and reduces our environmental impact.
2022 Impacts From Remanufacturing:
of Subaru Products Remanufactured
of Extended Life Cycle
We saved
of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Subaru Mobility Assist
At Subaru, we’re committed to helping those in our communities who need it most, including those with physical disabilities. To keep our promise and support those who need support, we’re providing reimbursements of up to $1,000 to help qualifying owners install necessary vehicle modifications due to medically recognized physical disabilities. Some examples of these modifications include hand controls or steering devices. In 2022, we processed 265 requests and spent almost $250,000 under the Subaru Mobility Assist program.
For more information, visit the Subaru Mobility Assist webpage.
Techshare™
TechShare™ is the Subaru vision for a fully integrated service solution to address the needs of technicians to efficiently maintain and repair Subaru vehicles and enhance the standard of Quality Monitoring Reports (QMRs). Technicians can use TechShare to create and submit QMRs via a mobile app, helping us more efficiently monitor product quality and respond to customer concerns. The app offers features including automatic vehicle identification number (VIN) identification, photo and video editing, speech-to-text notetaking, and more. TechShare provides a valuable means for our technicians to communicate customer concerns and improve our overall quality monitoring more quickly.
Advanced Quality Assurance
At Subaru, quality is a focal point of our brand. Advanced Quality Assurance is responsible for the Operational Quality Assurance of the Subaru vehicle processing centers. Our central focus is on delivering high-quality vehicles to our end customers and retailers through our rigorous Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) and accessory quality assurance programs. These programs ensure that the highest product quality standards are maintained throughout the vehicle processing and accessory installation of the units until the product is delivered to the end customers.