New Rogue barrels forth, sans hybrid

Nissan's redesign of its flagship Rogue model delivers an improved portfolio of family-friendly technologies expected of a crossover.

But also notable is what Nissan's volume-leading nameplate will not offer — a hybrid powertrain.

When the new 2021 Rogue launches this fall, it will offer a single powertrain: a 2.5-liter inline four-cylinder engine. That's in contrast to Nissan's competitors in the critical compact crossover segment that are doubling down on fuel-sipping electrified vehicles.

Three of the Rogue's biggest rivals — the Ford Escape, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V — are available with hybrid powertrains. At times, Nissan's Rogue has outsold all of them.

But the market is changing.

Hybrid variants give automakers a differentiator in a crowded segment, said Conrad Layson, researcher with AutoForecast Solutions.

"The RAV4 turned the virtue of a hybrid's fuel savings into a performance sales point," Layson said. Scheduled to launch in July, the 2021 RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid's combined system delivers 302 hp and is touted by Toyota as its fastest model after the Supra.

Toyota's hybrid RAV4 dominates a growing subcategory that saw nearly 118,600 new hybrid compact crossovers registered in the U.S. last year, up from 6,566 in 2015, according to IHS Markit. U.S. sales of the Toyota hybrid variant nearly doubled to 92,525 last year, accounting for 1 in 5 sales of the nameplate.

The Rogue has become a cornerstone of Nissan's portfolio. For the entire industry, compact crossovers were the volume leader in the first quarter, besting full-size pickups, according to the Automotive News Data Center.

Demand has soared as crossovers replace the midsize sedan as the "family vehicle." At the same time, technology and styling improvements have made hybrids more fun to drive and appealing to own. The hybrid versions of the CR-V, RAV4 and Escape all offer more power than their standard gasoline-engine versions.

Hybrid variations also resolve a major consumer barrier to buying crossovers and SUVs: concerns about fuel economy, said Ivan Drury, Edmunds' senior manager of Insights.

By not offering a hybrid Rogue, Nissan risks "turning away a swath of potential customers who do not want to compromise on fuel efficiency," Drury said.

Chris Reed, Nissan North America senior vice president of R&D, rebutted the assumption that the new Rogue will suffer for lack of a hybrid.

The Rogue's powertrain "hits the heart" of the compact-crossover segment, he said, with added horsepower and torque from the outgoing generation.

"The combination of performance, efficiency, refinement and value from this powertrain will appeal to the widest group of buyers," Reed said. "We continue to study additional options that could expand the Rogue lineup in the future."

Nissan has struggled in the past to implement hybrid propulsion.

The automaker launched hybrid variants of the Altima sedan and the Rogue and Pathfinder crossovers, only to discontinue them after a few years.

"The common theme is that they were all half-hearted attempts that never really optimized for either efficiency or performance," said Sam Abuelsamid, analyst with Guidehouse Insights.

For instance, starting in 2007, the hybrid Altima used a hybrid drive Nissan sourced from its competitor Toyota, mating it with Nissan's four-cylinder engine.

"Compared to the same hybrid hardware in the Camry, the Altima was significantly less refined with a lot of engine shake on restart, and Nissan never really pushed it very hard," Abuelsamid said.