Nissan wants hybrids to lead by 2030. In Britain a hybrid took an electric car’s factory slot

Nissan has told Automotive News it wants hybrids and extended-range models to be its primary powertrain in North and Latin America by 2030. In Britain the same strategy is already built: a £170M hybrid Kicks is going into the Sunderland slot promised to an electric Qashqai that Nissan stopped developing in early 2025.

Nissan wants hybrids and extended-range models to be its primary powertrain in North and Latin America by 2030. Britain has already seen what that decision looks like on a factory floor. A hybrid is going into the Sunderland slot an electric car was promised.

Christian Meunier, who chairs Nissan Americas, set out the plan to Automotive News, as InsideEVs reported . The Rogue hybrid arrives from Japan first and from Tennessee in 2028. A hybrid Kicks follows in America the same year.

The Kicks reaches Sunderland first. Nissan is spending £170M to build the Kicks e-Power there for Britain, Europe and Turkey, with a 143 hp motor driven by a 1.4-litre petrol generator.

It takes the place of an electric Qashqai. Nissan promised that car in 2023 and stopped developing it in early 2025. If it returns at all, reports put it in the early 2030s.

The shift is not Nissan’s alone. Hybrids are outselling everything in Europe , which is the problem the 2035 rules were not written to handle.

Britain’s rules are tighter than the continent’s. The zero emission vehicle mandate asks manufacturers for 33% of sales this year.

Electric cars outsold every other powertrain in Britain in August at 29.8%, a record month. The year to date is 25.6%. A hybrid built at Sunderland counts towards none of it.

The plant’s problem is volume. It built 273,174 vehicles last year against more than 500,000 in 2019, and runs at roughly half capacity.

One of its two lines is closing. Nissan signed a memorandum with Chery in June to build Chinese cars on it, and Geely said in April it would stop building factories and use other companies’ instead.

The Chery arrangement could protect most of Sunderland’s 6,000 jobs. It is not binding, and the terms are unsettled.

Europe has not stopped buying electric cars. They took 29% of new registrations in August. The hybrid surge is happening alongside that rather than instead of it.

Nissan sells one electric car, the Leaf. The Ariya was cancelled last year and the company says it is not coming back.

Meunier wants the Rogue hybrid at 30 to 40% of Rogue sales, without giving a date. Sunderland shows which car does not get built when that happens.