2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA — Complaint #2071550
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING filed March 6, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2071550 (ODI reference 11646679) concerns a 2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA and was filed on March 6, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 27, 2025. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as forward collision avoidance: automatic emergency braking, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: yes, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same SUBARU SOLTERRA cohort independently describe similar forward collision avoidance: automatic emergency braking failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2023 SUBARU SOLTERRA shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
My Subaru Solterra EV was parked in the driveway of an Airbnb in Virginia. We were about to depart to return home. Vehicle was turned on and driver commenced to back out of the driveway, however rear safety warning activated as car neared a bush. Driver stopped vehicle, then placed in Drive in order to pull forward a few feet to negotiate putting the car in reverse to leave the driveway. The car then lurched forward with great force and collided with the corner of the house we had been staying in, causing significant damage. Two concerns arise: 1. Why did the car lurch forward with great force to begin with? 2. Why didnât the automatic emergency braking system not activate? I shiver when I think what might have happened if a person had been standing in front of the car. The car is now being repaired by a shop selected by my insurance company. Once completed it needs to be thoroughly tested to determine if this could be an ongoing problem. I theorize a software glitch my
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2071550 |
| ODI Number | 11646679 |
| Date Filed | March 6, 2025 |
| Failure Date | February 27, 2025 |
| VIN | JTMABABA7PA |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.