News The X Factor

MELBOURNE, Australia – The all-new Nissan X-TRAIL has been named Australia’s Best Medium SUV at the Drive Car of The Year Awards, impressing across the board at the conclusion of the publication’s exhaustive testing process.

The award is a welcome honour for the Nissan X-TRAIL, which arrived in Australia in December 2022 as an all-new model in every possible sense, featuring a new platform, new safety equipment, and improved levels of capability.

Those key updates were welcomed by the Drive judging team, who recognised the X-TRAIL for its family friendly packaging, as well as its modern technology and safety equipment.

Drive's judges said: “The Nissan X-TRAIL is a thoroughly modern medium SUV with plenty of space for families inside.

“A family car that moves with the times, the new Nissan X-TRAIL delivers a comprehensive package for today’s buyer."

The Car of the Year judges also acknowledged that Nissan has added the X-TRAIL e-POWER variants from February 2023, "however the hybrid was not available in time for testing. It's likely that these e-Power variants, while more expensive than petrol-powered variants, would only have enhanced the X-TRAIL's Drive Car of the Year-winning merits. But, because we couldn't test it, it is not covered by this award.”

The Drive testing process is among the most rigorous in Australia, with only new models that have sufficiently impressed during the regular testing year invited to compete for the title of segment’s best.

Testing occurs at Transport for NSW's Future Mobility Testing and Research Centre at Cudal on the mid-NSW — a state-of-the-art facility perfect for in-depth testing.

Once there, they are put through their paces by Drive’s 11-person editorial team, drawing on a combined 200+ years of industry experience to reach a verdict.

“The medium SUV segment is one of Australia’s biggest and most important new-car categories, which makes this award for the all-new X-TRAIL even more exciting,” said Nissan Australia Managing Director, Adam Paterson.

“We were confident the X-TRAIL would be the perfect fit for so many Australians, and to have it claim such a prestigious award is a true honour.”