With the continuing saga of Carlos’ Fakery playing in the background, Nissan has announced pricing for both the Kicks and Rogue Sport machines. Nissan’s littlest crossovers continue to slice their showroom segments into ever-shrinking slivers, with just about all the air between their offerings having long vanished.
As you’d expect, there’s a marginal price hike for 2019 but the Kicks remains squarely in the sub-$20,000 category. The Qashqai Rogue Sport will command a few more dollar bills than last year as well.
Appearing in America earlier this year, the Kicks has been a hit for Nissan, serving to add 13,576 units to the company’s bottom line through to the end of October. The suits in Tennessee don’t break out sales stats for the Rogue Sport, demonstrating a convenient side effect of sharing part of its name with its bigger brother.
The Rogue/Rogue Sport duo far outsells anything else in Nissan’s fleet, chalking up 337,727 sales year-to-date. This represents well over half of the company’s truck side of the ledger and more than 150,000 units greater than its next bestselling nameplate so far in 2018, the Sentra.
For the 2019 model year, Kicks has a starting price of $18,540 for the base S trim, a $570 walk from last year’s rig. For that sum, buyers will find Nissan’s 7-inch infotainment system, automatic emergency braking, and sixteen-inch wheels. Stepping up through the range, one will find SV and SR trims which simply ladle on more options but do nothing in terms of changing the powertrain.
The Kicks is a front-drive only affair, a decision which surely keeps its base price at bay but may very well cost it a few sales in the Snow Belt. Kia is set to show a new Soul crossover later this month in LA and, given the teaser images we’ve seen, it’ll probably be available with power going to all four corners. You can bet Nissan will be watching closely to see how the market responds.
Slightly further along the food chain is the Rogue Sport, starting at $22,240 for a 2019 in base S trim. The current machine, strangely touted as a 2018.5 model, is listed at $22,110. New gear for 2019 includes a Rear Door Alert System (a feature which your author always disables because it makes him quite melancholy) on all Rogue Sports plus the availability of ProPilot Assist on snazzy trims. Unlike the Kicks, buyers can spec the Rogue Sport in all-wheel drive for a reasonable $1350.
Both the 2019 Kicks and 2019 Rogue Sport are on sale now.
[Images: Nissan]
Has TTAC done a post about Carlos Ghosn’s arrest?
Um, yes. A whole 9 posts below this one.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/11/renault-nissan-boss-carlos-ghosn-to-be-sacked-industry-titan-faces-arrest-in-japan/
Thanks! I totally missed it.
If the trade-in evaluator had still been in the office a month ago, I would have a Kicks in my driveway now. I really liked the car and its straight-forward simplicity. It also had a nice tight feel to the drive, but my standards aren’t that high.
As it turned out, we couldn’t make a deal that night, and I ended up getting a different car.
Do buyers need to be alerted that there are rear doors on a frequent basis? What is that rear door alert supposed to accomplish?
It’s to remind people to look in the back seat in case they forget personal items or a child.
I still think that quash something is the dumbest name ever. Just try and spell it and see what autocorrect comes up with. Yikes.
What’s with the squashkay name in the ROW, seems like Nissan ran out of funds to name it and left the vehicle wth the in house code name it got under developement in Japan.
The Qashqai people: mostly-Turkic clans living in Iran, traditionally nomadic pastoralists. The Tuareg people: mostly-Berber clans living in the Sahara, traditionally nomadic pastoralists. Sense a theme developing in weirdly-named SUVs? Adventure! Travel! All the way to and from Safeway, school, or work!