Nissan Qashqai review

Fairly dull. Despite Nissan’s liberal use of the word ‘sporty’, the Qashqai is about as sporty as an ice cream van. It rides well enough on smaller wheels, but the 19s and 20s add a bit of shudder over fairly minor disturbances, and that starts to grate after a while. You'll have a lovely time pottering locally – it's compact and easily parked thanks to the extra cameras and sensors – but trips away become a bit of a grind.

And at anything above half effort, the Qashqai just shrugs its shoulders and gives up. It's safe and understeers early, but has absolutely nothing going for it if you actually enjoy driving.

More importantly, the general vagueness means you can't place it with confidence on a fast road, so you have to concentrate harder than you would in something more well-developed. Like a Kuga. Obviously this is what 99 per cent of people expect from a front-wheel drive Qashqai, so it’s not exactly fatal. But still.

There are modes to try and liven things up, but why a car like this needs a 'Sport' setting is something only the marketing team is qualified to explain.

Tell me more about the fancy e-Power engine.

This is a hybrid (not a plug-in hybrid) with a slightly odd configuration that behaves more like a range extender. So, there’s a 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol engine that isn’t connected to the wheels: instead, it can either power an EV motor or charge a wee 1.8kWh battery.

Bare EV mode will only last a mile or so in practice (so good enough to leave the house silently, but not much more), and after that the little three-pot chunters away in the background. It actually rises in pitch as you accelerate, which gives the impression that it’s driving the wheels, but it isn’t; it just drives the e-motor that then sends its power to the front wheels. Got it?

Peculiar set-up aside, it's rather good: you get smooth, progressive power whenever you need it and the car's management of the battery means the engine is almost always hushed, even when you accelerate briskly. It's a far superior system to Toyota's recent CVTs, which would blow out your ear drums every time you flexed your right foot.

It'll do 0-62mph in 7.9 seconds and a 105mph top speed, and while the 3cyl thrum can be a bit much cruising at 70mph, it's nothing the radio or a good podcast won't drown out. There's also an e-Pedal regen mode for one-pedal driving like in a Leaf – think of it as a convenience setting for heavy, stop-start traffic.

On paper it promises 64.2mpg, and we've seen upwards of 50mpg on a long motorway run as well as 42mpg in more mixed driving. Very decent either way, if not quite class leading as far as fuel economy goes.

We're yet to try the 1.3-litre mild hybrid and its 156bhp, but it's rated at around 44mpg WLTP whether you go for the manual or the automatic. Both are slightly slower to 62mph as well, taking over nine seconds.

Anything else I need to know?

Yes. It's several clicks and scrolls to manually turn off the annoying speed limit and driver attention warning systems, the latter of which is especially egregious. However, you can set up a shortcut so that it's just two presses of steering wheel-mounted buttons to deploy your preferred settings. Phew.