Vox Weather and Subaru Southern Africa take SA’s biggest weather platform further into the field
4 min read
Vox Weather, South Africa’s largest digital weather platform with more than 600 000 followers, has partnered with Subaru Southern Africa to integrate the Subaru Crosstrek into the team’s field operations.
The vehicle will be used by the Vox Weather field team for storm chasing, outside broadcasts and the platform’s Beyond the Forecast series, as its symmetrical all-wheel drive technology is uniquely capable of keeping pace with the real-world weather conditions on which the Vox Weather team reports.
Subaru is the only manufacturer in South Africa offering a permanent symmetrical all-wheel drive system as standard across its full range. For Nteo Nkoli, national marketing manager at Subaru Southern Africa, it made sense to collaborate with Vox Weather to show South Africans what that engineering looks like in use.
The Crosstrek provides the team with access to locations and conditions that have been impractical and inaccessible in the past. Gravel roads into active fire zones in the Western Cape, mountain terrain for snow chasing in the Drakensberg, and coastal routes during Cape cold fronts – the Crosstrek’s X-Mode terrain management system can handle the demands placed on it by the Vox Weather team.
The X-mode is switchable between light snow and gravel, and mud and extreme snow settings, and its EyeSight driver assist system – which monitors blind spots and detects vehicles and pedestrians – has changed how the team plans and executes field work.
Beyond the studio
The Beyond the Forecast series by Vox Weather is also benefiting from the partnership. The series has already taken the team skydiving, hot-air ballooning and paragliding, but with the Crosstrek now part of the operation, the series can now follow the team as they spend time with fire pilots navigating fire season – terrain that requires a capable vehicle for safe access.
Future episodes are being planned around mountain snow chases and other demanding environments that the Crosstrek now opens up to exploration.
The Subaru branding will be present throughout all these productions as well as in the daily weather segments by Annette Botha (pictured), meteorologist and Vox Weather presenter, where the vehicle already features organically as part of how she presents from the field.
A practical solution
Nkoli describes the partnership as a live demonstration of the Subaru Crosstrek’s abilities. The goal is to show the symmetrical all-wheel drive system performing under the same conditions that South African drivers encounter daily.
The Vox Weather platform provides reach into an audience already engaged with weather and the outdoors, and the team benefits significantly from the all-terrain access the vehicle provides.
“This collaboration allows us to demonstrate how Subaru gives drivers the confidence to keep moving. It is a practical, real-world, living example of what the brand stands for. No other manufacturer has what we have, and this partnership puts that capability exactly where it belongs,” Nkoli asserts.
“Our horizon has expanded,” adds Botha. “We can now go further, into more extreme environments, and do it safely. The Crosstrek takes us to places we previously had to think twice about. That changes what Beyond the Forecast can actually be.”
