I bought my wife a 2019 Outback a few years ago because the driver's assist was the best one I had tried among Toyota, Honda, Chevy, GMC, Buick, Hyundai, and Ford. Remsen's criticism seems to be based exclusively on the Lane Keeping Assist. He didn't describe a problem with blind spot warning indicators, rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning or the collision avoidance. Also, his criticism seems to be based on an earlier version of Subaru's Eyesight system. Subaru introduced Eyesight in 2008, version 2 in 2010, then they upgraded it again in 2017. They introduced the newest version in 2020 but I don't know the details of which models and model years have that version. I know it's called Eyesight X and is available in Europe's Levorg model but maybe not in the US until MY2022.
My wife's MY2019 has the 2017 version of Eyesight and I find it to work near flawlessly -- but I do not expect it to drive the car without my hands on the wheel. It is not a pseudo-self-driving technology like Tesla's. Personally the feature I find most useful is the adaptive cruise control. Nevertheless, look at this Insurance Institute for Highway Safety white paper:
https://www.iihs.org/media/e8f617a5...search/Bulletins/hldi_bulletin_34.39.pdf It shows a 36% decrease in bodily-injury only insurance claims across all Subaru models equipped with Eyesight.
Subaru's Eyesight is a mature technology that's proven to work well. I replaced my wife's Mercedes with a car equipped with it primarily because of that fact. Are there better systems? No doubt there will be, and even Subaru's own Eyesight X is a contender for that. If there is another system available now that is meaningfully better, it is not likely to be on a car priced around $30K.
With that said, I can also tell you I don't particularly care for the Subaru, my wife's car, myself. I realize now it's probably because I'm not a lesbian. Seriously, I drive a much older vehicle and prefer that immensely, but my personal preference aside, I have driven a wide variety of late-model rentals while traveling which I think gives a better impression than just a test drive. By wide variety, I don't just mean make and model, but everything from European sports sedans, to minivans, Suburbans and Expedition XL's to Camaro convertibles and so on. The Subaru gives up handling for ground clearance. This is true both of the Outback and the Crosstrek. I would have preferred a Legacy wagon rather than the Outback. I have a 4x4 for high ground clearance so the Subaru's doesn't do anything for us. We do drive it on snow in the mountains but not offroad. Our Mercedes with the 4-matic and ESP does everything the Subaru can do in that respect and it handles much better. If there are large obstacles to clear, I will take the 4x4 that I've personally driven the Rubicon trail with.
So I give a big thumbs up for Subaru's current version of Eyesight. As for the cars themselves, there's a lot of personal preference and use-case involved. I don't particularly care for mine, but I didn't buy it for myself.
