Nissan confirmed the name and identity of its new entry-level EV on September 9, calling it the Pixo, a sub-€20,000 electric city car built to undercut every other new EV Nissan currently sells. The automaker says the car will make its full public debut on September 23, 2026, with sales starting in the first half of 2027, according to Nissan’s own European newsroom.
The Pixo name is a callback to a Nissan-badged city car sold in Europe more than a decade ago, but this version is an entirely new machine built on the AmpR Small platform Nissan shares with alliance partner Renault, according to reporting from Electrek, which cited platform details ahead of the full reveal. It’s effectively a badge-engineered twin to the Renault Twingo E-Tech, produced at Renault Group’s plant in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, a manufacturing arrangement Nissan has used before to get small cars to market faster than building a dedicated factory line of its own.
Under the skin, expect a modest 27.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack feeding a single electric motor good for roughly 60 kW, or about 82 horsepower, with a WLTP range in the neighborhood of 163 miles, per Electrek’s reporting on the shared Twingo architecture. Those aren’t numbers that will scare a Tesla, and they aren’t supposed to. The Pixo is being built to solve a single problem: EVs have gotten expensive, and city buyers who just want a car for grocery runs and school pickups have been priced out of the segment almost entirely.
That’s not an abstract complaint. Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book transaction price data has shown the average new vehicle in the U.S. selling for well north of $49,000 through much of 2026, and EVs specifically have carried a persistent premium over gas-powered equivalents even as incentives shift around. Nissan’s own U.S. lineup starts with the Leaf, but Europe has watched a wave of sub-$25,000 Chinese entries — the piece names the Leapmotor T03 and BYD Dolphin Surf as direct rivals — start eating into exactly the buyer pool Nissan wants back.
What’s Actually New Here
Nissan frames the Pixo as sitting below the Micra in its European electric lineup, with the Juke EV still to come as a third rung on the ladder. The company’s own release describes the car as “small in size yet big in personality,” language aimed squarely at buyers cross-shopping cheap city cars rather than anyone looking at a Leaf or Ariya. Nissan has not said whether the Pixo will come to North America, and given its A-segment dimensions and low-speed urban focus, there’s no indication it’s being engineered to meet U.S. crash and safety requirements at all.
- Name and teaser revealed: September 9, 2026
- Full unveiling: September 23, 2026
- On sale: First half of 2027, Europe only
- Starting price target: Under €20,000 (roughly $23,200) before incentives
- Platform: AmpR Small, shared with Renault Twingo E-Tech
- Battery/range: 27.5 kWh LFP pack, roughly 163 miles WLTP
For American buyers, the Pixo is a look at a price bracket the U.S. market simply doesn’t have right now — there’s no sub-$25,000 new EV sold stateside from any mainstream brand. Whether Nissan ever decides that gap is worth closing here depends less on the Pixo itself and more on whether the U.S. price ceiling on affordable EVs starts cracking the way Europe’s just did.