The foreign-market Nissan Kicks will soon be on sale in the UK and Europe, its maker has confirmed. The small e-Power hybrid SUV will sit alongside the third-generation, electric-only Juke in Nissan’s range and be built in the same Sunderland factory.
First launched as a concept car at the Sao Paulo Motor Show in 2014, the Kicks entered production two years later – primarily for Latin American customers. It replaced the Juke in the US and Canada in 2018, but has never been offered in Europe or the UK.
The second-generation car, which will be built in Sunderland as part of a £170m investment, was revealed in 2024. Models built elsewhere are currently sold in global markets including Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, as well as Japan, the US and the Middle East. However, while some of these countries get a choice of 1.0-litre and 2.0-litre petrol engines, it’s understood UK cars will feature Nissan’s pioneering e-Power hybrid technology.
Assuming the Kicks will inherit a similar system to the one found in the current Juke, we can expect the crossover to produce around 140bhp courtesy of a 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine and an electric motor directly feeding the front wheels – good for 0-62mph in around 10 seconds. However, the true advantage of the e-Power tech will be a huge boost in fuel economy; like-for-like, the hybrid Juke is capable of around 10mpg more than the pure-petrol car, as well as boasting significantly lower CO2 emissions.
