2017 Nissan Rogue Hybrid First Drive Review: Mystery Date

First drives are a bit like first dates in that you never know exactly what to expect, but after you’ve been on 25 years’ worth of them you get pretty darned good at sizing the prospect up in advance. One slight exception to that rule is electrified vehicles. Newly introduced EVs, plug-in hybrids, and gas-only hybrids have proven a bit trickier to read than their established, engine-only counterparts. Are those added electrons used purely for good—to stretch every gallon as far as it can go, delivering smug eco-superiority to its driver in lieu of driving fun like the sportingly styled but disappointingly joyless Honda CR-Z automatic? Or are they used to fortify stoplight sprinting like the sheepishly clothed, surprisingly wolfish seventh-gen Accord V-6 hybrid? Nissan’s latest hybrid entry, the 2017 Rogue Hybrid, was difficult to read going in.

The crossover’s engine goes down a half-liter in size, losing 29 hp and 31 lb-ft in the bargain, but the electric motor buys back all the lost horsepower and then some, registering a combined system output of 176 hp (versus the base 2.5-liter’s 170). Electric motors are notoriously torquey, and this one augments the 2.0-liter’s 144 lb-ft with another 118 lb-ft. Of course, you can never add these numbers as the torque peaks for engines and motors are usually radically different (in this case 3,600 rpm for the engine, 0 rpm for the e-motor), and Nissan doesn’t report a combined system torque—but it oughta feel plenty grunty down low, right?

Also auguring in the Rogue Hybrid’s favor is its Xtronic CVT, which boasts a broad ratio spread (6.97) that should be able to offer optimal leverage for any driving condition, with its Sport mode and D-Step shift logic aping a sporty stepped-gear tranny and optimizing acceleration when you crack the throttle more than 50 percent. Other cool features: the normal Rogue’s torque converter is swapped out for a pair of clutches, earning the slightly misleading moniker “Nissan Intelligent Dual Clutch System.” A wet multiplate unit launches the car (just like in a Mercedes-AMG SpeedShift MCT!), and a dry clutch serves to decouple the engine so it can shut down during coasting, extremely light-load driving, at stops, etc. That clutch also allows the hybrid motor to restart the engine under all conditions but an initial cold-start. One more cool feature of this system’s compact design is that the Rogue’s normal mechanical all-wheel-drive system is an option without adding an electric motor to the rear of the car as the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid does (front-drive is not offered on U.S.-market RAV4 Hybrids).

Perhaps we should take a moment to manage expectations as far as electric coasting and light cruising is concerned. The lithium-ion battery only packs 0.8 kWh of energy—that’s half the capacity of the RAV4 Hybrid’s nickel-metal hydride battery—so although it can sustain vehicle speeds of up to 75 mph under ideal conditions, and Nissan claims it will provide up to 2 minutes of 25-mph cruising (that’s 8/10 of a mile), there is no “EV mode” button for obvious reasons. The good news is that the battery is so compact that it only curtails cargo carrying capacity behind the rear seat by 1.1 cubic feet, preserving the flat load floor and compact spare tire fitment. It occupies the space where the otherwise optional third-row child seats would go, but it leaves enough room for the compact spare tire (which is otherwise unavailable with the third-row seat).

So does the 2017 Nissan Rogue Hybrid deliver on the sportier promise of its new mid-cycle facelift, or is it forever aiming to over-deliver on its estimated EPA fuel economy of 31-33 mpg city, 34-35 mpg highway? Well, if you engage the Eco mode, which activates a suite of fuel-optimizing “coaches” on the various screens, the driving experience is no fun at all thanks to a completely unresponsive throttle. The coaching consists mostly of a display in the center of the instrument cluster that shows a fuel economy gauge above which a blue cloud exists, growing larger when you drive most economically, shrinking to a dot when you hammer down. There is also a fuel economy history chart, but its values baffled us a bit. Engage the sport mode and the apparent elasticity of the throttle linkage disappears. Performance is about what you’d expect from a 6-hp boost—nothing noticeable. Wherever all that extra torque is, you won’t really perceive it as zippy acceleration. So let’s file this hybrid in the eat-your-veggies category, not the affordable F1 kinetic-energy recovery system (KERS) bin.

The Rogue Hybrid’s value proposition will hinge on its pricing, which won’t be announced until closer to its December on-sale date, but we’re assured it will be “very competitive with existing competitive hybrid nameplates.” The most obvious of these is the aforementioned RAV4 Hybrid. Toyota only tacks on $800 to the cost of an AWD XLE or Limited trim vehicle to add three electric motors and a battery twice the size of the Rogue’s. This suggests Nissan will struggle to make a case for a larger price differential on the entry SV and range-topping SL models, which range from $26,180 for the front-drive SV to $32,250 for the AWD SL. And value may make the difference between deciding to marry the Rogue Hybrid and breaking up with it after the first date via text.

2017 Nissan Rogue Hybrid
BASE PRICE	$27,000-$33,500 (est)
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, FWD/AWD, 5-pass, 4-door SUV
ENGINE	2.0L/141-hp/144-lb-ft DOHC 16-valve I-4 plus 40-hp/118-lb-ft electric motor; 176 hp comb
TRANSMISSION	Cont. variable automatic
CURB WEIGHT	3,650-3,800 lb (mfr)
WHEELBASE	106.5 in
LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT	184.5 x 72.4 x 66.3-66.6 in
0-60 MPH	8.9-9.4 sec (MT est)
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON	31-33/34-35/33-34 mpg (est)
ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY	102-107/96-99 kW-hrs/100 miles (est)
CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB	0.57-0.60 lb/mile (est)
ON SALE IN U.S.	December, 2016

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