Chance of a Turbo Version in Next 2 Years?

[OkieSnuffBox]

OP eats corn on the cob longways.

Seriously, as mentioned. It would be dramatically more expensive and heavier to make it a turbo car. OEM's have certain standards to meet, that are well past rep wheels, BC coilovers and a used SBD kit.


This car is obviously not for you. So don't buy one.

[LanceLane174]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

With the low run niche cars they are not going to worry if Peter or Paul pays just as long as one of them does.
Even at the same power which would also close the price gap there would still be a market for each. One would not rob the other to any appreciable level.

I agree that they wouldn't care about robbing Peter to pay Paul if they didn't have to sink a bunch of money into R and D. But to get this thing to turbo would cost a considerable amount of research and it would cost them the customers that aren't going to pay 40 to 45,000 for the car with a turbo in it.

[EAGLE5]

Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo

Agreed. Horsepower mattered way more for me before I had a 450hp car. Driving that daily for a few years made me realize that engine response and the shape of the powerband are much more important than the numbers.

EV, cough, EV.

[Yoshoobaroo]

Originally Posted by EAGLE5

EV, cough, EV.

Not the ultimate answer either for a sports car:

When the motor torque is no longer limited to save the drivetrain (after 40mph for this dyno), the torque curve drops catastrophically. EVs are stupid fast starting at 0 RPM, but the torque output of an electric motor pretty much drops linearly with RPM, so an EV will never ‘pull to redline’ like a great ICE does.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by LanceLane174

I agree that they wouldn't care about robbing Peter to pay Paul if they didn't have to sink a bunch of money into R and D. But to get this thing to turbo would cost a considerable amount of research and it would cost them the customers that aren't going to pay 40 to 45,000 for the car with a turbo in it.

The only extra R&D costs would be crash testing but they are nothing to sneeze at. The rest of the cost would be a pittance since Subaru is already really good at putting turbos in cars. I bet the design already exists but will never, ever, ever see the light of day.
They wanted two different cars from the start and they will not blend them simply because that was never the idea not because they are afraid of losing sales from one or the other.
There are some that would pay the big bucks but even then it would not be good enough and a big part of the internet would be screaming they won't buy it because it is not 5,000HP and that is what it "needs" to be worth it.

[timurrrr]

Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo

Not the ultimate answer either for a sports car:

When the motor torque is no longer limited to save the drivetrain (after 40mph for this dyno), the torque curve drops catastrophically. EVs are stupid fast starting at 0 RPM, but the torque output of an electric motor pretty much drops linearly with RPM, so an EV will never ‘pull to redline’ like a great ICE does.

Glad we're already starting with the torque-at-wheels vs speed representation

See ~7:22 in this video:

If you take an EV car and a CVT ICE car with the same peak power,
they will have nearly identical torque-at-wheels vs speed graphs.

If you then take a typical 6-speed manual transmission instead of CVT,
the engine will operate below peak torque at most speeds,
meaning the torque-at-wheels will be lower than that of the CVT car.

Even though the EV will not have the "drama" of increasing torque
some ICE cars have when accelerating in one gear, it will in fact be faster

[Yoshoobaroo]

Originally Posted by timurrrr

Even though the EV will not have the "drama" of increasing torque
some ICE cars have when accelerating in one gear

That is essentially the entire crux of my argument. The actual acceleration isn’t nearly as important to me as HOW pulls to redline. I understand this is a very specific preference (and pretty old school), but IMO you cannot beat an NA gasoline car that holds torque to redline. It just makes you want to rev the snot out of it in every gear and it is so damn fun!

Sports cars are all about feel IMO, numbers don’t matter as much as the sensation of driving.

Side note: when we had our second kid my wife wanted an SUV. Begrudgingly I agreed and we ended up with her preference in our price range: a 7YO Mercedes GLK, RWD. After driving it for a while I came to realize that I accidentally bought an absolute masterpiece of an NA V6 inside an automatic lump of child seat-carrying iron. It’s much slower than my BMW, but it’s actually a lot of fun because it’s so responsive.

[weederr33]

At least OP hasn't responded in a hot minute

[EAGLE5]

Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo

Not the ultimate answer either for a sports car:

When the motor torque is no longer limited to save the drivetrain (after 40mph for this dyno), the torque curve drops catastrophically. EVs are stupid fast starting at 0 RPM, but the torque output of an electric motor pretty much drops linearly with RPM, so an EV will never ‘pull to redline’ like a great ICE does.

Do you never rev the engine and drop the clutch? The goal is to skip the beginning slow part of the ICE curve and get up into the powerband ASAP.

Electric motor by and large have massively wide torque plateaus. They're efficient across a wide and wonderful RPM range that far exceeds what an ICE does well. For this reason, they tend not to ship EVs with any sort of transmission. The MS Plaid is perfectly serviceable in the quarter mile up to 150mph. Plus, it'd take a damn beefy transmission to handle all that torque. But then Porsche does just that in the Taycan, with the 2-speed. The result? More efficiency and such, but the Plaid still puts it to shame in a straight line. It's better to make a stronger motor and dump more power than to add a transmission. And 150mph in the quarter is pretty much all anybody needs.

[nikitopo]

This is an enthusiasts car that has to be affordable to the masses. Initial target was to cost $20,000 and it is now close to the $30,000 range. A turbo would increase its price even more.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

This is an enthusiasts car that has to be affordable to the masses. Initial target was to cost $20,000 and it is now close to the $30,000 range. A turbo would increase its price even more.

That would be the skewed perspective from guys on a car forum but the reality is probably way different. To many of the NEW car buyers it is simply a nice little inexpensive coup that makes a great daily driver, second car. To term them as "enthusiasts" would be quite a stretch. This is at least the case in much of North America where they are abundant. Europe (where they are rare) and places like California (where there are more "enthusiasts") may be exceptions to the rule.

[series.trackday]

Strange how many people are dogpiling on OP when it is and was a well-known issue of the first gen that the stock engine was the weakest point of design in the entire car. Subaru's boxer engine (and engine technology in general) doesn't really hold up against the other major manufacturers', and forced induction is very common in 2022 vehicles to provide the power people want (even in less sporty cars), and the fuel efficiencies that modern consumer demand.

Also, totally impossible Subaru/Toyota will ever offer a turbo 2nd Gen. They'd have to come up with a brand-new turbo design, different from their current turbo designs, to account for how low the engine is in the chassis.

[Yoshoobaroo]

Originally Posted by EAGLE5

Do you never rev the engine and drop the clutch? The goal is to skip the beginning slow part of the ICE curve and get up into the powerband ASAP.



Electric motor by and large have massively wide torque plateaus. They're efficient across a wide and wonderful RPM range that far exceeds what an ICE does well. For this reason, they tend not to ship EVs with any sort of transmission. The MS Plaid is perfectly serviceable in the quarter mile up to 150mph. Plus, it'd take a damn beefy transmission to handle all that torque. But then Porsche does just that in the Taycan, with the 2-speed. The result? More efficiency and such, but the Plaid still puts it to shame in a straight line. It's better to make a stronger motor and dump more power than to add a transmission. And 150mph in the quarter is pretty much all anybody needs.

You’re missing my point I’m afraid. I’m not talking about speed, numbers or any actual performance metric. I’m talking about how the torque delivery changes across the rev range. A constant (or even increasing) level of torque when you approach redline is much more exciting than a torque curve that drops fast while approaching redline, even if the resulting average acceleration is slower. If I gave a damn about how fast it is I wouldn’t be buying this car. Electric motors cannot avoid a constantly dropping torque delivery, gearbox or not. That’s just how an electric motor works. And that’s fine.

The same thing holds true with RC cars. The electric ones are really fast these days, faster than most nitro ICE RC cars. But the nitro engine’d cars have a more intoxicating power delivery. As an experience the nitros are more fun. But they also require way more work.

Originally Posted by Yoshoobaroo

The actual acceleration isn’t nearly as important to me as HOW pulls to redline. I understand this is a very specific preference (and pretty old school), but IMO you cannot beat an NA gasoline car that holds torque to redline. It just makes you want to rev the snot out of it in every gear and it is so damn fun!

Sports cars are all about feel IMO, numbers don’t matter as much as the sensation of driving.

[Lelandjt]

Originally Posted by Kona61

If you’ve never had a fast car, you don’t realize just how one dimensional they are lol.

My last sports car was an '04 STi I had for 12 years and tuned for gravel rally use. About 380-400 crank hp. I no longer spend winters in Colorado so I want lighter, lower, and RWD for my next one.