Nissan Navara's revolutionary 'global truck' successor less than three years away with Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger rival set to power up : reports

A Nissan Americas executive has hinted at the future of the brand’s ute and pick-up family becoming much more streamlined.

“Ideally we’d like to have a global convergence solution,” Chief Planning Officer for Nissan Americas Ponz Pandikuthira told MotorTrend when speaking about the future of the North American pick-up, the Nissan Frontier.

With the Frontier reaching time for a mid-life update, Nissan is looking to the future of its utes and pick-ups, with Pandikuthira suggesting the Frontier may merge in the next few years with the Nissan Navara sold in the rest of the world - including Australia, of course.

Pandikuthira said the only way a streamlined single global ute model would make sense is for it to be ready for electrification. "For its lifecycle to make sense and be compliant, it will have to be electrified,” he said.

Further to that, given the broad use potential for utes, Pandikuthira says to expect plug-in hybrid power as “the ultimate solution… we’re still working on it”.

Not only is it on the cards, but Pandikuthira says sooner rather than later is the plan: “We need to have a solution by [2028]. Three years from now.”

While this all appears to apply to North America, the timelines slightly differ from a very recent announcement from Nissan that a next-generation ute will launch in Australia within 12 months.

The new ute, not necessarily called Navara, will share its platform with Mitsubishi's new Triton, though further details are yet to be confirmed.

While the current Nissan Frontier, the first not based on a Navara, has been around for three years, and the full-size Nissan Titan has been discontinued, the current-gen Nissan Navara is more than a decade old.

Established rivals like the Ford Ranger are already confirmed to be bringing a plug-in hybrid to the line-up, while newcomers to the market like the BYD Shark 6 are proving plug-in can be popular in the ute segment.

If the Navara’s successor arrives with plug-in power within the next few years, it’ll be a massive step forward for the brand’s ute presence in Australia.