Nissan has been hinting for a long time that the next generation of its e-Power hybrid system will be ready for America. And after what might have been a completely different future with Honda, it appears those Nissan hybrids are finally firmly U.S.-bound. 

Nissan had already confirmed in October that it plans to launch e-Power in the U.S. and Canada by the end of fiscal year 2026—meaning before the end of March 2027. Then last month, the same day the Honda plans officially fizzled, Nissan confirmed that the Rogue, which is primarily a North American vehicle, will get Nissan’s third-generation version of e-Power (along with, globally, its Qashqai crossover and a minivan). And it started laying out more details about how the hybrid system will be expanded and evolved. 

The upcoming third-generation e-Power system is 20% more fuel-efficient and costs 20% less than the second-generation system, while providing better performance.

So expect Rogue Hybrid full details, including what we would expect to be a competitive price, to emerge during 2026—just as a 2026 Nissan Rogue plug-in hybrid based on the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is also emerging. 

The automaker had already put a lot of work into e-Power. Nissan originally launched the system in Japan in 2016 on the Note small hatchback. Then in its second generation Nissan managed to make the system 10% more fuel-efficient, while working on the refinement of the engine. As of last October it had sold more than 1.5 million vehicles with the system, and it was available in 68 markets.

As the company revealed back in 2021, it prioritized the development of a completely new engine for e-Power in its third generation, targeting 50% thermal efficiency from a new tumble-flow combustion concept. And as it highlighted in 2023, e-Power will incorporate new mapping and energy management tech to find the best zone for the engine in terms of engine revs, torque, and electrical output. 

Suffice it to say, U.S.-bound e-Power hybrids have been a long time coming. And as Infiniti hinted when abandoning e-Power-based plans in 2021, efficiency and drivability concerns were at the core of it. 

At a time when Toyota and Honda have reached about 50% hybrid sales for rival models in the U.S., the layout of e-Power has been part of the concern for holding the system back. Series hybrids typically struggle to produce efficiency gains on the highway, at near-steady-state conditions like those encountered often in America. 

What a Nissan Rogue hybrid might be like—in the city

I sampled the current second-generation e-Power system at its most refined point yet, in the Nissan X-Trail, in late 2023, when it was said to be in the product pipeline for the U.S., on an unconfirmed timeline. And even then, my takeaway was broadly that the system was every bit what it needed to be for U.S. urban driving—with plenty of questions remaining of what it might be like on the highway. 

The X-Trail is closest to the U.S.-spec Rogue in overall size and purpose. It’s also a decent comparison to the Honda CR-V Hybrid, Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, and Hyundai Tucson Hybrid, which a potential future Rogue Hybrid would face up against. 

For Japan, the X-Trail e-Power is badged the X-Trail G e-4orce—signalling that it’s a gasoline engine, and that it takes advantage of Nissan’s GT-R-derived all-wheel-drive dynamic control logic that made its American debut on the all-wheel-drive Nissan Ariya EV. 

In the Japanese-market form I drove (not all that much different than what’s sold in Europe), the X-Trail e-Power has a 1.5-liter direct-injection turbo-3, rated at 142 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque, and only driving a generator. The X-Trail e-Power delivers actual propulsion via two permanent-magnet motors— delivering up to 201 hp and 243 lb-ft in front or up to 134 hp and 144 lb-ft in back, but amounting to a combined system output of 211 hp, according to Nissan. In the somewhat smaller Qashqai (correlating to what used to be called Rogue Sport), a version of this same system outputs 188 hp. 

Nissan’s e-Power hybrid system is solely a series-hybrid layout, which means the gasoline engine starts and runs only to keep the battery pack charged and power flowing to the electric propulsion system—although for max power, the motors can draw simultaneously from both the generator and the battery. The 2.1-kwh lithium-ion battery in the X-Trail e-Power is a step bigger than any in this competitive set. 

Drives similar to Honda hybrid system in the city

In many respects, its city drivability felt a lot like Honda’s 2-motor hybrid system—with a strong, instantaneous launch feel including plenty of EV-like torque, with no interruptions to mechanically blend in torque from an engine. But unlike the Honda system, it doesn’t include the capability to engage the gasoline engine directly to the drive wheels under certain light-load cruising conditions, to boost mileage. The e-Power X-Trail offers an e-Pedal one-pedal drive mode for ramped-up regenerative braking, but I noticed that it simply didn’t provide as much real-world regen as an Ariya or Leaf (at least not in low-speed stop-and-go).

It also, I should note, has two strong motors at the front and rear wheels, so if anything, versus the Honda hybrids, it should feel noticeably more athletic in the same way as a dual-motor EV. I simply didn’t get the drive route to give it that kind of exercise. 

Our drive was on a street loop around a business area in Tokyo that’s separated from the most bustling and congested portion of the city—affording a little flexibility in familiarizing ourselves with the setup. Just taking some of the corners of this relatively low-speed urban course quickly, the X-Trail e-Power felt rather heavy though, and very softly sprung. The curb weight of the X-Trail e-Power is 4,136 pounds, which adds up to about 200-300 pounds more than the CR-V Hybrid, RAV4 Hybrid, or Tucson Hybrid. But the X-Trail felt comparable to the current U.S. Rogue in overall cabin refinement road noise. It has a front strut, rear multi-link suspension setup, with four-wheel vented disc brakes, and the version I drove rode on 235/55R19 tires. 

While we didn’t get much past 40 mph, it was enough to tell me that the engine started without a quake and didn’t sound like it was straining or revving, and it was barely perceptible during light-duty city driving and even up to suburban speeds. 

Will Rogue e-Power deliver good mpg, highway driving refinement?

How the series system behaves at those rapid U.S. highway speeds is a bigger question. Some reviewers in other markets have noted a cycling, or pulsing, issue with the second-gen e-Power setup that can become noticeable in steady highway driving or long grades—like what California drivers might encounter—so that may be one of the behaviors Nissan is attempting to purge in the U.S.-bound third-generation version.

The other question that hangs with us, after this news of the Nissan Rogue Hybrid officially confirmed, and Nissan’s continued bet on the series-hybrid layout, is whether the system can deliver impressive gas mileage for Americans. In Japan’s WLTC cycle, for instance, the X-Trail e-Power has a combined rating of 43.3 mpg, and claims 37.9, 48.1, and 43.0 mpg in city, suburbs, and highway drive cycles, according to Nissan. The RAV4 Hybrid in Japan, for instance, achieves 48.5 mpg in that combined test cycle, versus 40 mpg combined by the EPA for the 2025 Toyota RAV4. Apply that same factor to the X-Trail e-Power and you end up at about 36 mpg. 

The non-hybrid 2025 Nissan Rogue AWD already does an EPA-rated 28/35 mpg city/highway, with 31 mpg combined. If Nissan can use all those third-gen improvements to manage 40 mpg or more from a Rogue Hybrid, while bringing that more EV-like driving feel it’s already delivered with the Ariya e-4orce and that I felt underneath it all in the X-Trail e-Power e-4orce, it will indeed be a strong rival to RAV4 Hybrid, CR-V Hybrid, the Subaru Forester Hybrid, and others in this essential heart of the market.