Nissan will start selling its Frontier Pro pickup in Mexico this month, the first model the Japanese carmaker has developed and produced in China for global export.
The pickup will go on sale in the Philippines in November, and in the Middle East and other Latin American markets by the end of the year, Nissan said on Thursday.
Australia and New Zealand, its first right-hand-drive markets, will follow in 2027.
The rollout puts into practice a strategy Chief Executive Officer Ivan Espinosa has set out this year, using Nissan’s Chinese operations, and the development speed it has learned from its Chinese partner, to supply markets beyond China.
The Frontier Pro was designed, developed and manufactured by Zhengzhou Nissan Automobile, Nissan’s joint venture in China.
“It is the first Nissan model developed and produced in China for global export,” the company said.
PHEV and Combustion Versions
The pickup will be sold as the Frontier Pro in Latin America and as the Navara Pro in the Philippines, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.
Nissan will offer it with 1.5- and 2.0-liter plug-in hybrid powertrains and a combustion engine, depending on the market.
The combustion version will be sold in the Middle East, while the plug-in hybrid will be offered in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
The plug-in hybrid is Nissan’s first electrified pickup, according to the company.
It can also power external equipment through a vehicle-to-load function.
In Mexico, Nissan Mexicana is offering the plug-in hybrid in two versions, the LE at 899,900 pesos ($50,100) and the Platinum from 969,900 pesos ($53,900).
The Mexican version combines a gasoline engine and an electric motor for up to 350 horsepower and 660 newton-meters of torque, with a 20-kilowatt-hour battery and a total range of close to 1,000 kilometers, according to Nissan Mexicana.
It can tow up to 3.5 tonnes and carry up to 815 kilograms, the company said.
Mexican newspaper Expansión put its electric-only range at 75 kilometers.
“It is Nissan’s first plug-in hybrid pickup,” Rodrigo Centeno, President and Director General of Nissan Mexicana, told the newspaper.
Zhengzhou Nissan began selling the Frontier Pro in China in late November 2025, with prices from 169,900 yuan ($25,300) to 199,900 yuan ($29,800), and the plug-in hybrid from 189,900 yuan ($28,300) to 249,900 yuan ($37,200).
At the time, Nissan said exports would begin in the first half of 2026.
Mexico, where Nissan says it is the market leader, is the first market outside China to receive the model.
“Frontier Pro / Navara Pro shows what happens when innovative thinking is turned into real-world capability,” Chief Performance Officer Guillaume Cartier said.
“As one of Nissan’s lead markets, China serves as a key center for product innovation, engineering, and manufacturing excellence,” the company said in Thursday’s statement.
Nissan also said it plans to export the N7 electric sedan from China to markets including Southeast Asia and Latin America.
It has already confirmed the N7 for the Philippines, where it will be sold as the Primera EV.
CEO’s China Bet
Espinosa has argued that Nissan’s old approach in China, of adapting cars developed elsewhere, could not keep up with local manufacturers.
“That stopped working the moment you started to have local manufacturers making cars uniquely for China,” he told Semafor in April.
He said Nissan had learned from its Chinese partner “the way they develop cars, the speed at which they develop cars”.
He said Nissan had cut its global vehicle development process from 54 months to 37 months.
In China itself, Nissan has cut its product development cycle to 24 months to keep pace with domestic competitors, China Daily reported in April, citing Espinosa.
The N7, developed in China with partner Dongfeng, was the first car built under the new approach.
“We have the cost, the speed, and the technology of China because we built the car there,” Espinosa told Fortune in an interview published in July, referring to the N7.
“The pricing is on par with local OEMs,” he said, adding that the sedan “was designed from beginning to end in 24 months”.
Espinosa said in April, at the Beijing auto show, that Nissan would use China “to leverage our global competitiveness”.
“These products are good not only for China,” he said there, according to China Daily.
“We are going to start exporting some of these cars to South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East,” he told Semafor.
“You have a China ecosystem, and you have the U.S. ecosystem. If you want to be a global company, you need to live in both,” Espinosa told Fortune.
Nissan has said it aims to export 100,000 vehicles from China at first and about 300,000 later, and has considered Canada as a destination.
Steven Ma, Chairman of Nissan’s China Management Committee, called the Frontier Pro “a model born in China and developed for the global market” when it went on sale there.
Tariff Debate in the UK
At the same time, Nissan has urged the UK, where it builds cars in Sunderland, to adjust its tariff policy on Chinese vehicles.
“The whole UK has to adjust some of their tariff policy,” Massimiliano Messina, Chairperson of Nissan’s AMIEO region, told the Financial Times in September.
Nissan said it has sold more than 15 million pickups in more than 140 markets since introducing its Type 13 truck in 1934.
The Frontier Pro will be built to “Nissan production standards,” the company said.
