Subaru Turns Focus on Quality and the All-New Levorg is Our First Glimpse of What's to Come

Riding high from the Levorg’s win as the 2020-2021 Japan Car of the Year, Subaru CEO Tomomi Nakamura says there is more to come from the all-wheel drive specialist.

In an interview with U.S.-based Automotive News, Nakamura-san says Subaru is focused on overcoming the company’s past quality problems. Quoting him during his interview:

    We are making good progress in quality reform. There are two approaches.

    One is to ensure we have the right quality for vehicles currently in development. The other is to react and come up with solutions to defects in vehicles already in the market.

    New models that have come to the market recently are the Forester and the Outback and the new Levorg, for Japan. We’re changing the entire development process to improve quality. And we definitely see an improvement.

    But car development takes a lot of time. We started this activity from 2018, and total vehicle development takes five years. So even for the new Levorg, we think only 50 percent or 60 percent of the essence of these quality reforms is incorporated into this vehicle.

    To see a 100 percent impact, it will take until the vehicles in the next full model changes.

In addition, Nakamura-san says the company has no plans to expand their line-up to new segments. That said, he revealed that if Subaru is looking to expand, it will likely be another SUV or crossover.

    We can’t say we have any plans at this point. But it’s something we’re constantly thinking about.

    For example, consider the SUV C-segment, where we have the Forester. If the crossover segment keeps growing, maybe there is the possibility to have two models in that same segment. We can change their characteristics and sell them to different customers.

    Nothing has been decided. But we want to keep a close eye on what’s going to be taking over the losing segment share of passenger cars. And there may be some possibility there.

    The retailer request for us is not to introduce a new product but to make sure that the quality off the production line will be better than before.

    The retailer request for us is not to introduce a new product but to make sure that the quality off the production line will be better than before.