Promising Pathfinder
April 30, 2026
Alex KiersteinThe Nissan Terrano PHEV concept previews a tightly styled, compelling body-on-frame SUV that is hopefully the next Pathfinder.
You can buy the same Nissan Pathfinder in China as you can here. Well, kind of. The Chinese model looks different—arguably more interesting than the 1.5x-scale Rogue look of the US model—and is powered by a turbo I-4 rather than the old VQ-series V6. Even though the same platform is underneath, the Chinese version is … better? If that troubles you, don’t look at the rest of the Dongfeng-Nissan lineup, because while there are some models that you’re familiar with, there are others that are wild-looking, interesting even. And China is where Dongfeng-Nissan decided to reveal the Terrano PHEV concept, which diverges further from the current three-row unibody model in all the right ways.
We know that Nissan has a body-on-frame Xterra on the way, of course. In some ways, the Xterra was the real spiritual successor to the original Pathfinder/Terrano, which was an SUV-ified Hardbody pickup. So too was the Xterra an SUV-ified Frontier, D22 in the first and F-Alpha chassis in the second-gen. The Pathfinder, meanwhile, drifted into unibody land, went back to F-Alpha, and then landed on the D-platform. You know, what’s underneath the Quest minivan. (And other things, but the blobular fourth-gen Pathfinder looked the part of a generic three-row, front-drive-based thing.) It became something else entirely from the original brief. Not that this was an illogical move, but the execution was uninspired. And despite some facelifts (including a very heavy one for model year 2022), that’s basically the Pathfinder still on sale today, 13 years later.
It’s boring. Sometimes boring is good. In this case, it’s not as good, at least, as the Toyota Grand Highlander, which is beating it by a good 2–3k units a month. It’s serviceable but not inspired. (MotorTrend calls it “functional yet unremarkable,” which is a similar take!)
The Terrano PHEV Concept is none of those things. It’s bold, it’s body-on-frame, it’s a hybrid, it looks like something that could pull up to a new Ford Bronco or Toyota 4Runner in full off-road trim and seem like a challenger instead of a speed bump. It has some original Pathfinder elements, like the Xterra—I hope that triple inlet becomes a signature element for the brand’s body-on-frame vehicles, because it’s cool and rooted in some actual history.
It strikes me, aesthetically, a bit like a slimmed-down Patrol/Armada, in the same way that the new Land Cruiser is a bit smaller and less costly. And while it’s a “concept,” it seems very executable, provided a few of the show car elements are modified or jettisoned for production. (And, since it appears to be only an aesthetic exercise, the PHEV drivetrain details are nonexistent. I guess Nissan will save that for another show car.)
Its platform is a question mark, in terms of US market potential. The current Frontier is F-Alpha based; the rest-of-world Navarra is its own thing. But with Nissan developing a US-market Xterra, someone has to be considering this model’s global appeal. Because while the current Pathfinder isn’t much of a bar to clear, this would be a great way to show American buyers that Nissan has a pulse.
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