Nissan’s X-Trail SUV gives an effortless driving experience

THE popularity of the SUV with women drivers is perfectly illustrated by one particular accolade for this week’s drive, the all-new Nissan X-Trail.

In Paris recently a Women’s World Car of the Year 2023 jury — made up exclusively of women automotive journalists — awarded the Nissan X-Trail, Best Large SUV.

The new X-Trail was praised for its “spaciousness, effortless driving performance and electrified powertrain” called e-Power.

Having spent some time with the X-Trail, I have to agree. As soon as you get behind the wheel of this SUV, its capacious interior is apparent.

Glance in the rear-view mirror and you get an idea from the driver’s seat of how big this car is. Yet that does not make the car clumsy or unwieldy.

On the contrary, the “effortless driving performance” mentioned in the award citation comes to mind because the X-Trail has a lightness of touch not always on tap in larger SUVs.

The X-Trail whisks along either on major roads or motorways and is surprisingly manoeuvrable down country lanes — plenty of those in the Cotswolds where I live.

The interior of this car then appears exemplary with too many standard equipment features to mention them all.

However, comfort-wise it is worth noting on this model, the X-Trail Tekna e-Power, the immersive synthetic leather seats and automatic tri-zone climate control, which means you can easily keep the car as cool or as warm as you like.

On the entertainment front, there is a great Premium Bose Sound System with 10 speakers and digital amplifier.

There is a generous 12.3in NissanConnect Display screen and clear and helpful navigation system. I don’t think you could want for more information at your fingertips.

When you add up the number of standard features on this car, it is quite extraordinary to me that you get all this (in the test car model) for £46,075. I say extraordinary because a comparable brand in the large, prestige SUV bracket could cost you literally twice as much and more.

Going outside the test car, you can see that the optional two-tone Champagne Silver and black metallic roof livery sets it off nicely.

True, this would cost you an extra £1,095 as an optional extra but even then you are still looking at a hugely well-equipped and well-designed car for under £50,000.

Sometimes, I cannot understand why anyone would pay more for an SUV, until of course you factor in that mysterious ingredient of new-car buying — brand preference.

When I mentioned to a group of people that I was very impressed with the X-Trail, there was some derision and a chorus of preferred brands was offered.

If I have learned one thing in years of writing about cars it is that you can never second-guess why people buy certain makes of car. Though, of course, marketing people make a career out of this. Nissan I imagine is impervious to such speculation, concentrating instead on the fact theirs is a globally popular brand that traces back its beginnings to the early part of the 20th century.

It has grown over that century and the first part of this one, into a multinational carmaker whose headquarters are in Yokohama, Japan.

In 2010, Nissan introduced the Nissan Leaf as the first mass-market, all-electric vehicle launched globally.

However, flying in the face of the so-called EV revolution, what I like about the X-Trail is that yes, it does have an electric “component” — e-Power — but there is no need ever to “plug-in”.

An e-pedal in the car allows the use of e-Power, which is a system that offers an “EV-drive feeling” without the need to recharge.

This works well with the twin-motor e-4ORCE all-wheel drive system to give practically noiseless travel in cities and towns.

And because electric power kicks in when you start the car, the acceleration is torque-free (as with all EVs) because there is no waiting for the engine to build up revs. But once moving in the car I have been testing, the 1.5 litre petrol engine played its part by providing power from an internal combustion engine.

In most SUVs of the past, to get this kind of response from a large SUV, the conventional internal combustion engine would have to have been big in power and heavy on fuel.

The X-Trail is one of Nissan’s most successful global vehicles, with sales in more than 100 markets.

This fourth generation X-Trail draws from a well-established DNA that runs through all three of the previous generations of the X-Trail.

The new model is available as a five- or seven-seater. As an electrified seven-seater SUV, it is unique in its segment.

One report I read said that industry research shows women have input into the final decisions on about eight out of every 10 cars sold.

The fact that the X-Trail has just got the thumbs-up from an all-women jury at a prestigious awards event speaks volumes.