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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not an SUV but ticks other boxes including handling in bad weather.  Subaru Outback.  On my third one and I love it.[/quote]

Outbacks are definitely SUV's.  Subaru loves to mrket them as cars because their whole marketing schtick is to convince progressives it is ok to drive a gas guzzling SUV but legally they are SUVs.[/quote]
Is there a legal definition of the SUV? lol  Actually they are small station wagons.[/quote]

Subaru legally considers it an SUV to get out of the fuel efficiency requirements.

From https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Subaru-Outback-called-an-SUV-when-its-a-wagon

[i]Corporate Average Fuel Economy (C.A.F.E.) or simply put, it makes good business sense to classify it as an SUV instead of car/wagon.

What Subaru is actually doing is playing the “CAFE Game” that has become popular among automotive manufacturers in the past 15 years. By labeling the Outback as an SUV, which falls under light duty trucks, it is held to lower emissions and fuel economy standards.

CAFE is a long and complicated discussion to get into, but here is where you can read about it in detail.

Corporate Average Fuel Economy - Wikipedia

Essentially, all vehicles produced by a manufacture fall into various categories based on vehicle footprint, 2WD/4WD, GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) etc. Then they add up the metrics from this various categories to come up with the CAFE number. So the ratio of cars to trucks produced plays greatly into the CAFE average for the manufacturer.

Since Subaru doesn’t actually produce a traditional light duty vehicle (a truck), but has vehicles that fit the category due to footprint, AWD and GVWR, this allows them to take advantage of classifying some of their vehicles. This helps improve their CAFE rating because those light duty vehicles are held to lower emission and fuel economy standards than cars. It’s not well known, but Subaru engines aren’t the cleanest burning engines and the AWD, that is a big selling point for Subaru, also hurts mileage.

While Subaru is playing by the rules here, essentially taking advantage of this technicality helps them meet their CAFE standard. Since they are meeting their CAFE standard for the next few years using existing engine platforms and technology they are able to delay investments in drivetrain technology that would achieve greater fuel economy. While this is a poor reason, for a small manufacturer like Subaru, it saves them a tremendous amount of money and allows them to spread out those future investment costs in the meantime. Ultimately they will need to up their game as the CAFE standards increase every year until 2025 under the current agreement established during the Obama Administration.[/i]

Love.[/quote]

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