Nissan Xmotion crossover SUV looks good in Detroit
This strikingly styled SUV concept is smaller than it looks -- it's actually shorter than today's Nissan Rogue.
IIf you're a fan of concept cars, you know that Nissan's show cars over the last couple of years have been pretty impressive. The automaker's latest for the 2018 Detroit Auto Show , the Xmotion, keeps that theme alive with some utilitarian angles and a whole lot of screen inside.
The Nissan Xmotion concept (pronounced "Cross Motion") is intended to broadly preview the styling of Nissan's next-generation crossover lineup. It's a handsome arrangement, with some bulky lines around the fenders giving it some visual strength. Its headlights are similar to those in other new Nissan concepts, and the current lineup's V-shaped grille is nowhere to be seen. From the side and rear angles, I see a lot of Volvo XC40 inspiration -- and that's a good thing.
If a new Rogue or Murano captures even 10 percent of this thing's majesty, I'm sold.
The inside is equally as forward thinking. A set of suicide doors opens to display six individual seats across three rows, split down the middle by a pronounced center console. The seats look like something out of a movie, with a floating shoulder section that incorporates a headrest and some wild hexagonal shapes on the back.
If you can avert your gaze from the seats, the rest of the interior is damned impressive, too. The wooden center console made using traditional Japanese joinery leads into a sci-fi dashboard with cut shapes and red ambient light galore. The steering wheel looks better suited to a racecar than a crossover.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the interior is the single screen that spans the width of the dashboard, offering up all manner of information to both the driver and passengers. Instead of relying on a distracting controller, you can manipulate the screen using both voice and gesture commands.
The two oldest crossover models in Nissan's lineup are the Rogue and Murano. It wouldn't be obscene to assume that some of the Xmotion's features will make their way to new generations of both these vehicles in the near future, but we'll have to wait to see exactly how much inspiration any new Nissans pull from this concept.
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