Aussie engineers reshaped Nissan Navara Pro PHEV

Australia didn’t just test the new Nissan Navara Pro PHEV – it modified it. Heavily. Local engineers asked for a bigger turbo-petrol engine that didn’t exist in the program. They got it then created the ute’s Tow and Terrain drive modes on Aussie dirt.

It’s backed by the biggest local pre-production test fleet Nissan has ever brought to Australia, with engineers from China, Japan and Australia working together for the first time.

Overseas, the PHEV Nissan Navara is called the Nissan Frontier Pro PHEV and uses a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol. But after a 1.5-litre prototype arrived in mid-2025 to set a baseline, Nissan Australia went back to the well.

“It’s a combination that didn’t exist before we asked for it, we requested it, we’ve pushed for it, and this is what gives us that additional capability for that long-range capability,” Nissan Australia engineering manager Ryan Stevenson told carsales.

Fellow engineer John Galvin, Nissan Australia’s general manager of TCS and engineering said the target was keeping the battery topped up when hauling a big caravan up a significant incline such as a mountain pass.

“Further development and tuning of that powertrain as part of the local program really narrowed the focus in on maintaining that battery state of charge when you’re towing three and a half tonne and going up some of the steepest and sustained gradients that we can find in the country,” he explained.

While the 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine sits in the usual spot under the bonnet, the e-motor lives inside the eight-speed auto, which means the Navara PHEV keeps a driveshaft, a proper low-range transfer case and the ability to pick any of eight gears manually off-road – something the top-selling PHEV ute – the single-speed BYD Shark 6 – can’t do.

Like most PHEV utes, it t can also run in pure EV mode and testing of the new plug-in hybrid Navara has run from the tracks of the Lerderderg State Forest to the climb up Victoria’s Mount Donna Buang.

Five pre-production utes – more than Nissan has ever brought in ahead of a launch – have covered about 20,000km so far says Nissan and another three or four are due before it launches in the second half of 2027.

Tow and Terrain modes didn’t exist before the first right-hand-drive prototypes landed either.

“We had six of the chassis engineers actually on site, being able to develop those systems on the run, plugged into the cars, waiting at the bottom of a hill… and then reprogramming something and it goes up,” Galvin explained.

Call it China speed with an Aussie accent.

Nissan’s local testing goes back more than 30 years, including a Telstra-specific Patrol cab chassis developed for the outback.

This time, though, the team sat alongside Nissan Japan and the Zhengzhou light commercial vehicle centre in China.

“We’ve been learning off each other, learning different skills and techniques, and it’s been great,” Galvin said.

That validation is also what lets Nissan hang its 10-year/300,000km warranty on the Chinese-built ute.

Testing is ongoing, with leaf- and coil-spring rear ends, tyres, diff-lock combinations and ADAS calibration still being finessed ahead of a launch targeted for the second half of 2027.

Galvin says the pay-off is a ute with “huge powertrain capacity” and genuine off-road chops – something it hopes will give it a point of difference compared to rivals. With 1492 BYD Shark 6s finding homes in September 2026 alone, it clear who Nissan will be targeting.

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