Goodbye for now, STI 😔
Oh Subaru purists will have a lot to say about this.
As the automotive marketplace continues to move towards electrification, Subaru is focused on how our future sports and performance cars should evolve to meet the needs of the changing marketplace and the regulations and requirements for greenhouse gasses , zero emissions vehicles , and Corporate Average Fuel Economy .
There are quite a few takeaways from those two paragraphs. The first of course is that emissions regulations means the STI is unfeasible. Under CAFE rules, an automaker that cannot meet a certain standard have to pay penalties; this is in the US, but that also happens to be Subaru's biggest market that accounts for a significant portion of STI sales. The lion's share, probably.
So Subaru wants to significantly improve their emissions footprint with an all-new WRX STI. It's too soon to tell, but we expect that to be in some kind of hybrid form; perhaps mild hybrid style, but with a bit more kick. Whichever electrification style they go for, it will be with a new generation internal combustion engine.