Video: 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-in Hybrid Quick Spin: A Stellar Commuter SUV

But is that a bad thing? Does it drive any different than the Outlander? Does it feel more Rogueish? Well, let me take you on a ride. I'll show you exactly what they've introduced here. (upbeat music) So I feel like this new Nissan Rogue needs a little bit of explanation because it looks like a Mitsubishi Outlander because it kind of is a Mitsubishi Outlander. See, the Outlander is based off of the current Nissan Rogue. It uses the same platform. So Nissan, which is a part owner of Mitsubishi, sends them the Rogue platform, they make the Outlander out of it, but Mitsubishi also makes a plug-in hybrid, which is what this is. So there's an Outlander plug-in hybrid, and Nissan saw that and said, you know what, we really would like to have that back. We need a hybrid for the Nissan Rogue. And there one is, pretty much ready-made. So what they did is they just basically took the Outlander and slapped on some Nissan badges, made the chrome grill black, and now you have a Nissan Rogue Plug-In Hybrid. In terms of how different it is from the Mitsubishi, well, the answer is it's not. The interior looks just like the Outlander. It uses a lot of common parts between the Rogue and the Outlander. So things like this display screen, some of the gauges, the steering wheel, the buttons, these are all very familiar Nissan and Mitsubishi common parts. So in terms of the stuff that you touch and the stuff that you look at, yeah, a lot of it is very common between Nissan and Mitsubishi. And that's not a bad thing because it is all very high quality. It feels good, it's quiet inside, it's well-built. The material quality is excellent. You can only get the new Rogue in the two high trim levels, the SL and the Platinum, the plug-in hybrid version anyway. So there won't be any less expensive versions of the Nissan Rogue Plug-In Hybrid. It's going to be just the nicer ones anyway that have this really cool quilted leather, things like that. The vehicle itself uses a gasoline engine and a fairly large battery to operate in electric mode up to 38 miles when it's got a full charge, according to the EPA. Whole thing makes 248 horsepower and 332 pounds feet of torque. But it doesn't really feel like that much torque because even when you put your foot down, the thing is fairly slow to react. It's not really built for speed or performance. It's really more about being built for efficiency and really good commuting duty. Being a plug-in hybrid, that's what a lot of owners like when they have that kind of a commuter thing. If you live 20 miles from your place of work, if you still go to an office, you can charge the thing up at night, it takes about seven and a half hours on a 240-volt circuit, and drive 20 miles to work, drive roughly 20 miles home, and you can do the entire thing on electric operation only, which is great. You could fill the vehicle up only a couple times a year if that's really what you're using your vehicle for. But if you do want to go beyond that 38 miles of electric range, with a full charge and a full tank of gas, the thing can go up to 420 miles before you need to refill the tank with gas. There are a couple of different drive modes as well. Being a plug-in hybrid, you have some options. This is kind of neat about this one. Not all plug-in hybrids do this, but there is an EV mode, which is what we're in now, which allows for very quiet operation. Frankly, the only noise in here is now really coming from wind noise from the top of the A-pillars and the sunroof. It's also got some roof rails on it that I think are also adding to the noise, but not much road noise. There's no engine noise because the engine's not running. You can put it in charge mode, which if you've depleted your battery will run the gas engine in order to recharge the battery as you're driving or as you're idling. You can also put it in hold mode, and that will hold the battery charge where it's at, running the engine whenever needed in order to keep the battery at that state of charge. And that's kind of useful if you have a commute that's longer than say the 38 miles that it's rated for the range. Plug-in hybrids like this are most efficient when you're operating them around town. So when you're driving on the highway, they're really not the most efficient. So the best idea might be is fully charge the thing, give it a full tank of gas. If you immediately get on the highway, put it in hold mode, and then when you get to the lower speed portion of your commute, maybe it's a city center or something like that, then you put it in EV mode. Use the energy that's there and put it back in gas mode on the way home. So there's different ways and different strategies for operating these kinds of things. In terms of driving this thing, it's just as nice as the Mitsubishi version, which I must admit is really quite good. It's comfortable. There's plenty of room in here. The build quality is exceptional. The materials are outstanding really. You've got a very large, clear display screen here. You've got separate buttons for different selections. Your climate control is not in the touch screen. Climate control is separate. So you've got a rack of buttons down here and knobs for automatic climate control as well. There really aren't that many plug-in hybrids on the market in terms of a five-passenger small SUV. But the other interesting thing about this is that it's not five passengers; it's a seven-passenger SUV. There is a very small third row in the back of this vehicle. Mitsubishi kept that feature for the Outlander. Nissan kind of got rid of it for the Rogue, given that they had other vehicles in the lineup that would serve that purpose. Like the Pathfinder, that if you really want a three-row vehicle, well, the Pathfinder is a better option than a Rogue in terms of size. But Mitsubishi, given that this is more of a global vehicle for them and is very popular in Europe, still kept that very small third row in the back. Now getting on the highway in EV mode, foot to the floor, it really doesn't move that fast because the electric motor's not that powerful. We are accelerating, but we're not happy about it. Eventually, once that battery is depleted, it says we have three miles of range left, it will automatically switch on the gas engine, or you could put it in automatic mode using a button here. So now we're in automatic mode and it'll run the engine as it needs to, which happens if you put your foot down, then it powers up the engine. Give you a little bit of extra grunt. So you're not getting all of that horsepower and torque if you just keep it in EV mode. You have to keep it in auto mode in order to get all of that power and torque. But when you do have it in auto mode, it will shut the engine off if you're just coasting down or if you're cruising at speed. The nice thing about it though is that if you wanna build your battery power back up, now we just simply push this EV button, send it down to charge mode, and it automatically runs the engine and you can actually watch your range increasing as you're driving. So overall, what Nissan's done here is take a ready-made package in terms of the Outlander plug-in hybrid, slap a couple badges on it, call it a Rogue and call it good. Now, if you'd like your own 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-In Hybrid, well, you might wanna get to your Nissan dealer rather quickly because they've told us that this thing might not actually be sticking around too long. The next generation Nissan Rogue is just around the corner, and we're probably gonna see it sometime in 2026 and it's going to have a full hybrid system as well, which might mean that this thing is only a one or two model year bridge vehicle, but at least they put a hybrid in the Rogue lineup. Now if you'd like to see pricing or anything more about the new '26 Rogue Plug-In Hybrid, you're gonna have to visit cars.com/news. (upbeat music)