If you visited the Philippine International Motor Show last year, chances are, you stumbled upon the Nissan Magnite. It was one of several models that Nissan Philippines previewed during the event.
For those who need a recap of what the Magnite is, it’s essentially Nissan’s entry in the growing and competitive subcompact crossover market. More specifically, it’s the entry-level small crossover segment that it’s aimed at. Think Kia Sonet and Toyota Raize, not to mention a barrage of models from China.
At the time, Nissan didn’t confirm if the model will be sold in the Philippines. The car’s appearance at PIMS 2024 was more a gauge of customer reactions to see if it’s worth bringing here. That said, the segment the Magnite competes in is a hot one, and it only makes sense for Nissan to offer it here.
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Now, we somewhat have confirmation of its local sale. It’s not from Nissan, though, as it’s the LTO that released its homologation papers recently. That puts this model one step closer to appearing on showroom floors soon. Two variants were listed, namely the VE and the VL.
VE typically stands for entry-level in Nissan’s book, while VL is top-spec. But what’s more interesting here is the engine. The LTO listed both variants as 1.0 VE Turbo and 1.0 VL Turbo. With that, we can say that the Magnite is likely to be powered by an engine similar to the Almera.
Nissan’s 1.0-liter turbo is a three-cylinder engine. Assuming Nissan won’t make any tweaks to it, we’re expecting 99hp and 152Nm from the Magnite, exactly the same as the Almera. The same could be said about the transmission, a CVT. No manual variant was listed in the LTO database at the time of writing.
Given that its papers are in, we might not have to wait too long for the Nissan Magnet’s local launch. It’s possible that we could see a few teasers later this year and its arrival means the Raize and Sonet have more competition on their hands.
