Driven: 2025 Nissan Kicks Is A Home Run

It’s an all-new Nissan Kicks for the 2025 model year, and while Nissan as a brand has its issues, the Kicks arrived in fine style, and earned our Best Budget Car Of The Year award. The Kicks has matured with this new generation, but not at the cost of personality and affordability. In fact, the balance of style, fun, features, and affordability Nissan has pulled off with the new Kicks earned it one of our most hotly contested award segments.

To move the Kicks forward, it’s grown an inch or two in each direction, the exterior styling is bolder and less fussy than the last generation, the interior is fresh and features new infotainment. A new 2.0-liter engine making 141 horsepower replaces the previous and easily strained 1.4-liter unit, and, for the first time, the Kicks has all-wheel-drive as an option.

Exterior Looks: A Hard Exterior

The new Kicks is 2.8 inches longer and 1.6 inches wider than the previous model, which doesn’t sound like much, but it does a lot to increase the overall interior size. It comes in three trims, the S, SR, and SV, and 16-inch steel wheels are standard on the S, 17-inch wheels come with the SR and the SV gets 19-inch wheels as standard. On top of the three trim levels, two premium packages are available, and our SR tester came with roof rails as standard, then the FWD Premium Package, which includes a panoramic moonroof. The two-tone premium paint is an option for $680.

It may have increased in size, but it still has a smaller footprint for city driving than its closest rivals, including the Honda H-RV and Subaru Crosstrek.

Interior & On-Board Technology: Like The Inside Of A Football Helmet

Inside the new Kicks, there’s a considerable upgrade in overall refinement that includes Nissan’s excellent Gravity Seats. There are some hard plastics, but that’s common for the segment, and they don’t leap out at you. Space is at a premium in a compact crossover, and the extra dimensions on the outside show on the inside with an extra 0.9 inches of legroom for rear passengers, enough for a couple of tall adults not to complain on short trips. There’s more shoulder room, 1.9 inches, up front, which makes a lot of difference over the outgoing model when you translate that to elbow room.

The Kicks is more likely to be for single people, couples, and parents with small kids than a full-size family, so cargo space is an important factor, and it varies a little from model to model. The base FWD model has 30 cubic feet behind the second row, and 60 cubes with that folded flat. One model up in the range gets a little less, at 29.2 ft³. The total cargo space with the rear seats folded also shrinks to between 50.1 and 58.5 cubes with all-wheel-drive optioned. Even with all-wheel-drive, cargo space is excellent for its overall size, matching the Honda HR-V and larger than Chevrolet Trailblazer and Kia Seltos.

Infotainment: Base Model Could Be A Lot Better

While the Kicks was given our 2024 Affordable Car Of the Year award, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The entry S trim comes with a seven-inch touchscreen that lacks Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. That would be unforgivable if the SR didn’t come in at such a good price including a 12.3-inch touchscreen and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The S trim is an incredibly basic one, which is what allows it to be so low in price.

The 12.3-inch screen is nice and sharp and responds reasonably quickly to inputs, but it’s consistent – we didn’t experience any sudden lag when going deeper into the menus. The optional Bose system includes the now traditional headrest speakers as part of its 10-speaker setup. We’re not personally fans of Bose, but the system in the Kicks is a lot of fun. It won’t satisfy genuine audiophiles, but it’s one of the few Bose experiences we’ve had in a car that we’ve not been actually fatigued by in under 20 minutes.

Performance: A Big Upgrade In Every Way But One

While the Kick’s new engine isn’t exactly a powerhouse, the 2.0-liter unit makes 141 hp with 140 pound-feet of torque, up by 20 hp and 26 lb-ft, respectively. It’s enough to take it from being almost strong enough not to strain itself covering city, country, highway, and freeway miles, to being strong enough to get out of its own way when needed. The CVT (continuously variable transmission) is well-tuned, and on our local twisting downhill road that can catch out much more expensive cars, it was entirely predictable.

Performance Impressions

That extra power in the Kicks translates to around nine- or ten-seconds for a 0-60 mph time, which is enough to comfortably get up to speed joining a busy fast-moving freeway. More importantly, when moving along at around 40 mph, it doesn’t slouch its way up to 70 mph. Around town, the mix of engine and transmission allows the car to hustle through traffic and shortcuts.

Ride and Handling

The new Kicks is more refined all around, not just inside. The suspension is capable of not rattling the passengers on California’s most notoriously truck and earthquake battered roads on the 19-inch wheel and tire combination, but also to keep the chassis flat enough for the car to be direct when changing direction. That doesn’t mean the Kicks is a sports car on a backroad, but it’s surprisingly fun in Sport mode with crisper throttle response and the back willing to rotate behind the front with a little persuasion coming off throttle or with using the brakes.

Where the Kicks has personality is in how it feels to sit in and drive. When we first saw the new Kicks, the designer told us how one of the concepts they worked from is the idea of an American football helmet being soft and padded on the inside, but with a hard protective shell on the outside. We’ve heard a lot of concepts over the years that we nod along to and sound good, but they rarely actually translate, let alone in a sub-$30,000 vehicle. Well, it does here, and a part of that is in how the hood sits high and flat, then flared to the side. You’re actually seeing that shell while sitting in those brilliant Zero Gravity seats. On top of that, and in a fun way, it’s the same sort of view you get from a sports car like a Mazda MX-5.

Fuel Economy

Expect 28/35/31 mpg city/highway/combined from the FWD model, which isn’t stellar, but it’s competitive in its segment. AWD models fare slightly poorer, at 27/34/30 mpg. Purely anecdotally, after a week of a mix of freeway, highway, city, and mountain driving, we logged a displayed 31.2 mpg.

Verdict & Pricing: A Home Run

The Nissan Kicks starts at $21,830, which is one hell of an entry point, even riding on steel wheels with cloth seats and no Apple CarPlay. The sweet spot is, as expected, the $23,680 SV version on the 17-inch wheels with the new infotainment system and the wireless Android Auto and Apple Carplay combo. The SR comes in at $26,180, which is great with all its accouterments. However, we wouldn’t call the SR a no-brainer for those that want all the bells and whistles, as the cost of replacement tires for 19-inch wheels can defeat the point of an affordable car – and they don’t do the ride quality any favors.

As a value proposition, the Kicks is strong, and was strong in its previous incarnation. But the 2025 model brings everything up to date and doesn’t feel like a car you buy because it’s the one you can afford. It’s a value proposition that also has personality, is genuinely comfortable, looks great, and is fun to drive. And, if you go for the SR or SV, one that’s also bang up to date with technology and doesn’t lack connectivity features.