Yes, this crossover has a much bigger responsibility to deal with than its brothers. Qashqai has attracted so many buyers for being a great family car in Europe, while the typical slight off-road intentions were left for X-trail – across the Atlantic, the latter role was given to Xterra. In other words, Qashqai is a smaller and (much) cheaper version of the concept that inspirates Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GL, for instance. These models still offer all that imponent style which has attracted countless customers to crossovers in the past few years, but never try to even look like having any real intention of defeating too rough tracks.
This is what allows Qashqai to reach the interesting situation of reminding of its brothers at the same time that it simply doesn’t. It’s very easy to mistake it for X-Trail at the first look, because they share Nissan’s most recent design language. There are fluid lines and smooth volumes at both of them, combined to very aggressive details that end composing very attractive compact crossovers. However, it just takes seeing them side-by-side to start noticing how different they are. Rogue and X-Trail’s elements make them look bulkier, like if they belonged to superior categories. Their baby brother, in turn, invests on a more fluid design, that makes it sportier and much nimbler.
Looking at the spec sheet actually confirms those feelings: the car became longer and slightly lower and wider than its outgoing generation. The outside wins for the impressive 0.32 drag coefficient, while the interior is able to improve what helped Qashqai to sell so well since 2006: extra soundproofing treatment, bigger space, better-quality materials and a much more attractive console, everything was re-worked in order to make it a better car, rather than a different one. All of its qualities are still there, being only enhanced now. And paired to more high-tensile-steel structural components and some aluminum suspension parts, which helped the car to become more resistance as well as 40-kg lighter.
Besides, there are several new electronic safety systems, such as moving-object detecion, 360-degree external vision, collision-prevention braking, dynamic chassis control and Nissan’s new fatigue sensor: Qashqai starts to monitor the driver from the moment its engine is started, and shows how concentrated it is through an eight-bar gauge at the brand new 5-inch display. When it comes to the performance, the new crossover will always use turbocharged four-cylinder engines with six-speed manual or CVT transmissions: using gasoline, it offers a 112-hp 1.2L and a 150-hp 1.6L, while the diesel range counts on a 110-hp 1.5L and a 130-hp 1.6L, all of them having very interesting consumption and CO2 emission numbers.