SPYSHOTS: 2020 Nissan Almera seen once more in KL

Another month, another round of N18 Nissan Almera spyshots. The all-new fourth-gen has been spied yet again undergoing road trials in Kuala Lumpur, this time along Jalan Kuching, where it was spotted by reader Lai Say Lim.

The fourth round of spyshots catches a solitary white Almera, still featuring the same front/rear black cladding to disguise its identity. The car bears the same trade plates as that seen on the May photoset, and could well be the same car seen last month. There’s no body-coloured diffuser insert on the lower section of the bumper, which the white example sighted in December had.

The May shots only showed the rear of the car, but today’s images reveals that the evaluator has the larger, two-tone alloy wheels, which means it’s not a baseline version. That is what the silver-coloured evaluation mule from the spyshot set from December last year is – it has smaller-sized alloy wheels. Essentially, that’s the E grade as found in Thailand, with halogen headlamps part of the specification level.

The car seen here could well be the high-spec version, but with its body-coloured rear diffuser insert omitted. In Thailand, from the EL grade on, equipment levels go up to include safety kit such as Intelligent Forward Collision Warning and Intelligent Emergency Braking (AEB) and items such as an in-glass radio antenna and keyless entry/push start.

It’s likely that our high-spec variant will be based on the V grade, which adds on a number of items on top of that listed above. The kitbag includes LED headlamps and DRLs, auto air con, a six-speaker Nissan Connect Infotainment system with eight-inch touchscreen display and Intelligent Around View Monitor (360-degree bird’s eye view) with Moving Object Detection. As indicated by the spyshots, LED tail lights look to be standard issue across the range.

Only one engine is available for the Almera in Thailand, and that’s a HRA0 1.0 litre turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine offering 100 PS at 5,000 rpm and 152 Nm of torque from 2,400 to 4,000 rpm. The mill is paired with an Xtronic CVT with D-Step Logic, with power sent to the front wheels.

The output is close to the 102 PS coming off the HR15DE 1.5 litre normally-aspirated four-cylinder mill seen in the outgoing local Almera, but has a little more torque. It hasn’t been established if the Malaysian Almera will be equipped with the new, smaller displacement turbo or retain the existing NA unit, or utilise both in the line-up.

Edaran Tan Chong Motor confirmed last year that B-segment sedan will be introduced in Malaysia sometime this year, and although the Covid-19 outbreak has impacted its launch timeline, the indication is that a launch isn’t all that far away.

It’s set to do battle with the new fifth-gen Honda City, which is also due to arrive sometime later this year, so things are bound to heat up in the B-segment category by quite a bit.