Nissan Wants to Make Hybrids Its Main Powertrain Type in North America by 2030

• This will hinge on the new Rogue e-Power, an upcoming Kicks e-Power, and a range of V6 hybrid trucks and SUVs.

• The automaker expects the Rogue e-Power to quickly account for 30 to 40% of Rogue sales.

• The plan also calls for additional U.S. production for models sold locally.

Having just introduced the 2027 Rogue e-Power, Nissan says it expects hybrid powertrains to become the backbone of its lineup by the end of the decade.

Indeed, after having been left behind by rivals Toyota and Honda, who are currently enjoying significant success with their hybrid offerings, Nissan is planning a multi-model hybrid strategy to catch back up.

This will, of course, start with the new Rogue e-Power, which is expected to quickly make up 30 to 40% of all sales of the brand’s most popular model in North America.

After that, the automaker will bring this same technology to the sub-compact Kicks in North America, likely for the 2028 model year. A Kicks e-Power already exists in Japan, but the version sold in Canada and the United States has only been offered with a 2.0L gasoline engine since its launch in late 2024.

Unlike most hybrid vehicles on the market, Nissan’s e-Power technology uses the gasoline engine as a generator only, meaning it never directly powers the wheels.

Nissan Americas Chairman, Christian Meunier, says that this results in the Rogue e-Power being as efficient as the Toyota RAV4 while also being quieter, smoother, faster, and more fun to drive.

The Kicks e-Power is expected to function similarly, but we don’t know if this will be the case for other upcoming hybrid Nissan models.

Indeed, the other future models we have heard of will be larger, body-on frame trucks and SUVs, such as the next-generation Frontier and the upcoming X-Terra rugged SUV.

These models will be powered by an all-new family of hybrid V6 engines that are still being developed ahead of their launch, planned for somewhere around 2028.

Few details are known about these models at the moment, but they should allow Nissan to compete head-on with similar future products from Honda, which will also rely on hybrid V6 powertrains.

These future V6-powered models will be manufactured in the United States, where the new Rogue will also be assembled for the U.S. market starting in 2028.

The company will begin by shifting production of the gasoline-powered Rogue at its Smyrna, Tennessee plant from the current model to the new one next spring, before bringing over production of the e-Power variant in 2028.

Due to the trade situation between the United States and Canada, all Rogues destined for the Canadian market are expected to continue being manufactured in Japan, at the automaker’s Kyushu plant.

The arrival of the new Rogue and the addition of its hybrid variant will likely require a third shift at the American factory, which is expected to run at or near its 600,000-unit annual capacity.

At the moment, this facility, which builds the Rogue, the Murano, the Pathfinder, and the Infiniti QX60, churns out about 400,000 vehicles per year with two shifts.

With this change and the arrival of the upcoming V6 hybrid models, Nissan expects to manufacture 80% of the vehicles it sells in the United States locally, which should shield it further from potential tariffs and trade tensions that could still exist at that point.

Since it was conceived only as a stopgap before the arrival of the Rogue e-Power, the Mitsubishi-derived Rogue PHEV has already exited production, with 3,000 units manufactured for the United States and 1,000 for Canada.

Source: Automotive News