You could make a convincing argument that any of several cars are the heart of the Subaru brand. But you’d only be right if you cited the Outback. The lifted wagon is the platonic ideal of Subaru – an everyday livable car that stands out in a parking lot full of lookalike crossovers thanks to its unpretentiously outdoorsy attitude.
An updated Outback is simultaneously a big deal and no big deal. Fans are devoted to the car and excited about the new one. But you know it’s not going to change radically. It will just become a bit more of itself – a pair of REI-branded pants, now with a tab to lock them in place when you roll one leg up to keep it out of the bike chain.
There’s an updated Subaru Outback coming.
Family Resemblance
The 2023 Outback isn’t an entirely new design. It’s what the automotive industry calls a mid-cycle refresh. Halfway through a new design’s lifecycle, engineers update its look and technology to keep it competitive.
The 2023 Outback’s new look includes a wider hexagonal grille, angular LED headlights, and a reworked front bumper. The bumper now incorporates huge black plastic air intakes that somewhat ape the look of the black fender covers on the 2023 Solterra, Subaru’s first electric vehicle.
Making the Outback look a bit more like the Solterra helps more obviously integrate the EV into the Subaru family. It has the same emotional effect as Mom dying one strand of hair green to show support for the teenager’s punk phase. How very Subaru of the family.
New Navigation Tech
Subaru hasn’t discussed pricing. We expect the numbers to stay close to 2022’s $27,145 starting price.
Inside, there’s an improved navigation system. It uses a technology called what3words that, behind the scenes, stores the entire globe’s surface as 57 trillion 10×10 foot patches, each given a unique address consisting of a three-word phrase like whispering.cafeteria.cried. You don’t need to remember them. It just helps the navigation system store more specific sites – that phrase, for instance, pinpoints the third scenic overlook at Great Falls National Park in Virginia.
For users, the behind-the-scenes tech is invisible. But it lets you get directions to highly specific locations even if they don’t have a street address.
Added Standard Safety Gear
The 2023 Outback also gains new standard safety tech at every trim level. Even base models now get blind-spot detection, and the lane-change assist and rear-cross-traffic alert functions gain automatic emergency steering assist.
There are no mechanical changes to speak of. Most trim levels carry the same 2.5-liter flat 4-cylinder engine, getting 182 horsepower and up to 33 miles per gallon. XT and Wilderness models get a 2.4-liter turbocharged boxer engine delivering 260 horsepower and 30 mpg on the highway.
