The Subaru Forester has an extremely loyal fanbase and an easy-to-understand place within the automotive world. It hits a candy spot of functionality and worth. It’s an inexpensive approach to get one of many extra revered all-wheel drive (AWD) techniques available on the market. It’s a nice household automobile to your every day commute, it may well deal with snowy mountain roads with aplomb, and it’s at house along with your kayak or mountain bike on the roof.
What it has by no means been, nonetheless, is a hybrid. For 2025, Subaru has completely redesigned the Forester and launched a Forester Hybrid with 14 horsepower greater than the gas-powered model and 6 mpg extra in mixed metropolis/freeway driving.
Subaru loaned me one for per week. I spent it operating errands round my Washington, D.C., house, together with a number of lengthy freeway journeys with an entire load of junk from a basement cleanout challenge to see how that further energy held up beneath a load.
Which Trim Degree
Subaru sells the gas-powered Forester in Base, Premium, Sport, Wilderness, Restricted, and Touring variations. It presents the hybrid in simply 4: Premium, Sport, Restricted, and Touring. My tester was the midpriced Restricted Hybrid.
The Restricted meant bigger 18-inch wheels, StarTex fake leather-based upholstery, seat heaters, a panoramic moonroof, 11 Harman Kardon audio system, and a digital instrument cluster. Consumers haven’t any alternative of inside colour. You get black with the grey exterior (sorry, River Rock Pearl), or a grey inside with another paints.
It retails for $41,225, with the paint the one added-cost possibility ($395).
New 2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid Costs
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Retail Worth
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Truthful Buy Worth (85140)
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$36,415
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TBD
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$39,415
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TBD
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$40,830
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TBD
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$43,115
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TBD
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Favourite Characteristic
The 2025 Forester has maybe the very best visibility of any automobile I’ve examined in at the least three years.
Security specialists say visibility is a rising drawback with right now’s automobile designs. A current joint government-insurance trade examine discovered that with larger hoods, thicker pillars, rising trip heights, and a penchant for boxy SUVs, right now’s vehicles block your view of the world round you greater than the vehicles of a technology in the past.
A few of these modifications make it extra more likely to survive a collision, however I fear we’re buying and selling away the flexibility to keep away from them within the first place.
The Forester’s excessive greenhouse, low beltline, and incredible seating place allow you to see extra of the highway in each path than most vehicles.
What It’s Wish to Drive
Should you’re studying a Subaru Forester overview, the numbers inform us that there’s a great probability you’re contemplating changing an previous Forester with a brand new one. I’m joyful to report that the elemental character of the Forester has modified little with the Hybrid. The few modifications that present up are enhancements.
In case you haven’t pushed one, the Forester is sure-footed. Its low-mounted boxer engine sits decrease within the engine bay than most rivals’ inline engines. That structure provides it a low heart of gravity that makes it really feel properly planted. It gained’t win races, however the steering is gentle, and the grip is agency.
The Hybrid presents 194 hp to the fuel automobile’s 180 hp, but it surely seems like greater than 14 have been added. The electrical motor contributes primarily to acceleration at neighborhood speeds, the place this feels slightly zippier than the historically unhurried Forester. Nothing will make this a sports activities automobile, however the hybrid accelerates with sufficient confidence to match the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. It additionally has the phase’s tightest turning circle.
One odd word: The repeatedly variable computerized transmission (CVT) emits a low, quiet whistle in an in any other case quiet cabin. With the radio on, you gained’t discover it. With it off, greater than as soon as, I assumed a siren was approaching a couple of blocks away earlier than realizing the sound was coming from the automobile itself.
Inside Consolation and Expertise
Past its wonderful seating place, the Forester Restricted Hybrid presents a well-rounded cabin that doesn’t stand out.
I’m a fan of high-mounted touchscreens that preserve your eyes on the highway if you examine the instructions. So I nonetheless dislike the low-mounted model Subaru makes use of in its gas-powered vehicles. However this one is giant, at 11.6 inches, however responds barely slowly to faucets. You get used to it. However if you happen to check drive a serious rival, you’ll discover the lag within the Forester Hybrid.
The Forester Hybrid provides up slightly little bit of cargo quantity in comparison with its nonhybrid counterpart. Nonetheless, I nonetheless match the remnants of my associate’s above-ground pool (a pandemic buy too high-maintenance to maintain), a broken-up twin field spring, and extra within the again with room to spare.
Limitations
The Forester Restricted Hybrid begins at $42,430, together with supply charges. An equal gas-powered Forester Restricted begins at $39,510 — a distinction of $2,920.
The U.S. Division of Power estimates you’ll save $250 a yr on gasoline by shopping for the hybrid. You’d should drive it for 12 years to start out saving cash on fuel.
Should you’re contemplating a hybrid to chop your carbon footprint and benefit from the added energy, the hybrid mannequin is sensible. Should you’re contemplating one to save cash, you in all probability wouldn’t.
