Nissan’s legendary off-road SUV will return as a hybrid.
Aaron GoldWriterAvarvariiPhotographerManufacturerPhotographerOct 03, 2025
FUTURE Nissan Xterra frontquarter
What It Is A reincarnation of the 2000–2015 Xterra as a tidy, off-road-focused hybrid SUV, as confirmed to Bloomberg by Nissan Americas chairman Christian Meunier. Leading up to the announcement, Nissan filed a trademark application for the Xterra name in the U.S. and a teaser photo of upcoming Nissans included a boxy SUV with prominent roof rails, a silhouette familiar to Xterra fans (and on which our speculative renderings are based). Meunier also confirmed the new Xterra will be built starting in 2028 at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant in order to take advantage of available capacity at the facility. An Infiniti version isn’t off the table, either.
Why It Matters Nissan’s product lineup needs a few more injections of “interesting,” and with several off-road-focused SUVs now popular in the market—think Ford Bronco and Toyota Land Cruiser—it makes sense Nissan would greenlight an Xterra reincarnation. The first generation of this SUV won MotorTrend’s Truck of the Year award in 2000 and performed rather well within its segment.
Platform and Powertrain Early indications from Nissan were that the new Xterra would be fully electric, but that’s now been scrapped. Instead, the Xterra will utilize a hybrid powertrain centered around a V-6 engine. In fact, Nissan’s plans for EV production in the U.S. are completely on hold, with the Mississippi plant more likely to have the Armada and Infiniti QX80 SUVs moved there than to be retooled for large-scale production of electric vehicles.
In addition to the wider EV market, another factor is cost. Nissan has announced aggressive cost-cutting measures, including an effort to reduce the number of global platforms that underpin its vehicles while increasing parts commonality. It’s also canceled a planned EV battery plant in Kyushu, Japan. As such, the new Xterra will use the same platform used for the Frontier pickup and share additional parts with the Pathfinder SUV.
FUTURE Nissan Xterra rearquarter
It’s a tantalizing premise: The Xterra returning to its roots as a rugged body-on-frame, internal-combustion SUV. Styled with the right mix of retro and modern elements, it could be a strong competitor for the aforementioned Bronco and Land Cruiser, as well as the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota 4Runner. U.S. production will allow it to side-step a lot of the tax and tariff issues likely to remain unsettled for the length of the Xterra’s gestation, and potentially provide it a price advantage over Toyota’s off-road SUVs, which are imported.
Estimated Price $38,000–$48,000
Expected On-Sale Date Late 2028
This story was originally published August 22, 2025. It has been updated with the latest confirmed information about the next Nissan Xterra.
Aaron Gold
After a two-decade career as a freelance writer, Aaron Gold joined MotorTrend’s sister publication Automobile in 2018 before moving to the MT staff in 2021. Aaron is a native New Yorker who now lives in Los Angeles with his spouse, too many pets, and a cantankerous 1983 GMC Suburban.
