2025 Nissan QASHQAI to live on alongside its electric ‘successor’

The refreshed 2025 Nissan QASHQAI will remain on sale long after the 2028 release of what was expected to be its all-new battery-electric replacement, the Japanese car-maker has confirmed.

While the facelifted version of the third-generation QASHQAI (the original was called the Dualis in Australia) is due on sale by the end of this year, a new similarly-sized battery-electric small SUV previewed by the Hyper Urban concept at the 2023 Tokyo motor show had been expected to replace it within four years.

But when asked if the QASHQAI would continue to be available alongside its all-electric ‘replacement’, Nissan’s chief planning officer for the Oceania region, François Bailly, said: “Yes, because the markets around the world are so diverse in terms of speed of electrification that we can imagine the different technology [being offered] at the same time”.

The senior Nissan vice-president refused to explicitly confirm whether both the facelifted QASHQAI and the all-new EV would be offered at the same time in Australia, but it’s likely.

To ensure that both battery-electric and combustion-powered vehicles can be made on the same production line at its Sunderland plant in the north of England, Nissan has already begun spending part of the huge £3 billion ($A5.8b) investment it has committed to building not only the QASHQAI and its EV sibling, but also the new LEAF EV and the electric-only replacement for the pint-size JUKE.

The huge electrification investment will also include three new battery-producing ‘gigafactories’ that will supply powerpacks for the three new EVs.

The first of the three new-generation EVs will be the MkIII LEAF, which will transition from being a small hatch to a high-riding SUV, with a limited pilot production run of cars set to be made at the British plant from this August.

The new models are part of an EV transformation of the Japanese brand, which will launch a total of five EVs including a new Micra and an Interstar delivery van.

Nissan is yet to reveal details about its electric QASHQAI-size SUV, but it’s expected to be based on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance’s CMF-EV architecture, which underpins the Renault Megane E-Tech and Scenic E-Tech, and is also likely to underpin the new Nissan JUKE and LEAF.

Although it will miss out on Nissan’s first solid-state batteries, the all-new small electric SUV will be powered by lithium-iron-phosphate batteries that should be capable of charging at up to 280kW.

Combined with being around 30 per cent more energy dense than the lithium-ion batteries in the Nissan Ariya, they should enable the ‘QASHQAI EV’ to charge twice as quickly as the mid-size electric SUV that’s still yet to arrive in Australia.

Now available with combustion and innovative e-POWER hybrid powertrains, the existing J12-series QASHQAI racked up its best sales month ever in February, with 974 registrations.

Nissan Australia says the QASHQAI e-POWER variants, which have only been on sale for two months, now account for 22 per cent of all sales.

The facelifted QASHQAI will bring a new-look front-end design, upgraded interior trims and materials, fresh paint colours and updated tech including Google’s multimedia operating system.

Full details, including pricing, will be released closer to the release of the 2025 Nissan QASHQAI, which is expected towards the end of this year.

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