Subaru Advanced Tourer Concept – 2011 Tokyo Auto Show via Carscoop

Motor Trend is reporting that the Advanced Tourer Concept (ATC) that Subaru unveiled last year is actually the prototype for the new WRX. The all new 2012 Impreza is currently for sale, but Subaru is looking to separate the WRX from the Impreza. The WRX’s chassis will be a heavily modified version of the Impreza’s, but it will be different enough to warrant it being its own model. The separation from economy car roots should also help give the WRX more performance credibility. The new car will simply be known as the “WRX” instead of the “Impreza WRX.” The big shocker came when Motor Trend’s insider at Subaru told them that the entire front end on the Advanced Tourer Concept is pretty much how it will appear on the production WRX. Everybody thought the ATC was a preview of the next Legacy, not the WRX. This is great news because the ATC was one of the best looking design concepts of last year. Check out Autoblog’s gallery of it from the 2011 Tokyo Auto Show. Chances are the gullwing and suicide doors won’t see production and neither will the wagon body, at least not here in the US. My guess is that they will stick with the tried and true hatcback and 4 door sedan body styles, though I definitely would welcome the wagon. The interesting news on the new WRX doesn’t stop there. The new car will be a hybrid, but not in the way that you’re thinking. The Subaru engineers were able to design a traditional hybrid drive train, but they felt that the added weight of a large electric motor and battery pack didn’t suit the performance focus of the WRX. They decided to go with an electric turbocharger hybrid system instead. It will harnesses the heat energy from the engine’s exhaust and turn it into electrical energy. The system is most likely going to use something very similar to the turbine side of current turbochargers attached to a small generator. The electricity from the generator will then be stored in a battery pack. Those batteries will then drive an electric motor that’s attached to an air compressor to force air into the engine. The system will function very similarly to a traditional turbocharger but with an added intermediate step of electricity in the middle. This will be more complicated, but the payoff is that the electric motor can drive the compressor independently of engine rpm. The hybrid electric turbo will eliminate “turbo lag” but will still take advantage of the waste heat being produced by the engine to increase fuel efficiency. Subaru could even go as far as to make the new WRX a plug-in hybrid where you charge the battery pack from an external source which would let you run very high boost pressures with the electric compressor for extended periods of time. The best part is that the electric motor and generator required for this new system will be much lighter than the traction motors used to drive the wheels of a traditional hybrid. Subaru applied for a patent for the electric turbo in 2007, so lets hope they got it figured out and it can make a difference in the quest to make fuel efficient performance cars.

Sources: Motor Trend and Autoblog