Throughout its history, Nissan has always had a lot of strange designs, certainly more so than its big competitors like Honda and Toyota. While in recent years Nissan’s U.S. lineup has gotten pretty drab, lately it’s been turning things around with a bunch of great designs that are at least slightly weird, like the latest Sentra and Leaf. At an event in Japan this week, Nissan teased the next-gen Xterra SUV and Skyline sedan, as well as revealing the attractive new Rogue, but by far the most interesting debut was a car we won’t get: the new Juke EV.
We got the first-generation Juke in the U.S., and it was probably Nissan’s funkiest and most controversial design of the century at that point. Just over 200,000 were sold here, but the Juke was a bigger hit in Europe, so they got a second generation with refined styling that’s still pretty cool. Now, 1.5 million people have purchased Jukes in Europe, so it’s an important car for the brand. This new-gen Juke, though, is really something else. Nissan calls it “daring and unconventional,” and that’s an understatement. Can you believe this is a production car? Like, a normal person with a regular job can just go out and buy one of these, for what will probably be around $25,000. That is wild.
No need to adjust your television sets
I think now more than ever before, we’re living in a time where cars on the road look like they’re concepts, or something from the future, and that’s the case across pretty much all segments and price classes. Improvements in lighting technology, manufacturing processes, and materials have opened up totally new possibilities; Nissan never could have produced something with the Juke’s stamping a decade ago. Designers of city cars are able to have some of the most fun, and the team that worked on the Juke really just went for it. As you can see from the embedded video, it seems like it’ll look even more outrageous in person.
Nissan says the Juke is “agile, compact, and unmistakably Nissan,” and I do have to agree. It looks totally fresh and unlike really anything else, but it does remind me of some of my favorite Nissan concepts, and some cars like the Pao. As my colleague Logan correctly put it, the Juke would definitely be a Rock-type Pokémon. The faceted design theme is used on every body panel and exterior element, from the headlight shape to the wheel arch surrounds to the plastic bumpers to the taillights to the spoiler to the wheels.
On sale in Europe next year
It looks like a robotic frog from the front, and I especially love the eyebrow lights. The peaked surfacing gives the Juke a really athletic stance for such a tiny crossover, and the absurd number of creases — I count at least fifteen on just the doors — catch the light in really cool ways. Like Europe’s Toyota C-HR and some other competitors, the Juke is shown here with a two-tone black band across the C-pillar. That color split hides the taillights, and lower in the bumper are large light pods that look like afterburners.
Nissan
I really appreciate how the swaths of black plastic exterior trim have an interesting texture and how the arches have a distinct shape. One of my favorite design details is the slanted Juke badging against the tailgate. The spoiler and charging flap seem to have either a pattern or maybe some small text on them, but it’s hard to tell. We’ve also got no clue what the inside looks like yet, but I hope it’s even half as nuts as the outside.
The new Juke rides on the same CMF-EV platform as the Leaf, and while we don’t have any specs yet, its powertrains and performance should be pretty similar. Nissan says it’ll have vehicle-to-grid technology, but that’s about the extent of what else we know. It will be built at Nissan’s Sunderland factory in the UK, with European sales set to start in early 2027.
