2025 Nissan Kicks vs. 2025 Volkswagen Taos

2025 Volkswagen Taos SE Black ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

In today’s new car market, many buyers looking to get their first new vehicle are gravitating mnore to small SUVs and crossovers rather than sedans and hatchbacks. With starting prices well under $30,000, the Nissan Kicks and WolVswagen Taos are two popular entry-level small crossover SUVs. Manufactured with materials from around the world, the Kicks and Taos sold in the U.S. undergo final assembly in Mexico.

Other top-selling small crossover SUVs include the Chevrolet Trax, Honda HR-V, Hyundai Kona, Subaru Crosstrek, and Toyota Corolla Cross, to name a few.

Pricing and Features

Just because these two small crossover SUVs are considered entry-level vehicles doesn’t mean they are stripped of all but the most basic features. With ever-changing and unpredictable tariffs on products built outside the U.S., the situation is fluid. But currently, the base price spread for the 2025 Kicks is $23,220 to $27,570, including a $1,390 destination charge. All-wheel drive, available for the first time on the Kicks this year, adds another $1,500. Available trims include base S, mid-level SV, and topline SR. The SR comes with a standard 12.5-inch infotainment screen plus options such as a surround-view camera and a Bose premium audio system. The Kicks is the choice for buyers on a tighter budget. 

Base prices for the 2025 Taos range from $26,920 to $36,620, including the $1,425 destination charge. Available trims include the base S, mid-level SE and SE Black, and range-topping SEL. The SEL includes niceties such as a power-operated driver’s seat, leather seat trim, embedded navigation, heated and cooled front seats, and standard all-wheel drive. 

Winner: Nissan Kicks

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Exterior Design

Both the Nissan Kicks and Volkswagen Taos have a new look this year. The 2025 Taos sports an aggressive bottom breather grille, slim LED headlamps, and full-width light bars and illuminated VW logos on uplevel trims. The freshened exterior gives VW’s smallest crossover rugged SUV styling reminiscent of larger SUVs.

For its part, Nissan executes a complete makeover of the Kicks, imbuing it with an angular and jazzy appearance bursting with “look at me” curb appeal. It sports stacked in-grille LED running lamps and highly sculpted flanks, as well as a kicked-up rear, sloping roof, and attention-grabbing two-tone paint schemes. Aside from the striking tech-forward design, the 2025 Kicks is longer, wider, and taller than last year’s model, the latter of which Nissan continues to offer in 2025 under the Kicks Play moniker. 

Winner: Nissan Kicks

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Interior Design

The Volkswagen Taos and Nissan Kicks may be entry-level small crossover SUVs, but they are far from being hard plastic penalty boxes inside. The cabin layout of the Taos is a bit old school, but even the base S model comes with soft-touch surfaces on the dash and doors, two- and three-tone color schemes, a heated steering wheel, and in AWD models, heated front seats. Moving up to the SE trim adds faux-leather seat coverings, a power driver’s seat, and an available panoramic sunroof. Opting for the top SEL trim brings ventilated front seats and real leather seat coverings.

The Kicks sports a modern interior with an angular design that complements the exterior design. Also included in the Kicks are dual digital dash displays and comfort-enhancing NASA-inspired Zero Gravity seats in both the front and rear. The front seats are manually adjustable only, and a heated steering wheel and heated front buckets are available. The top SR trim upgrades from cloth to faux leather with contrasting-color cloth inserts and includes double-stitched trim on the dash, doors, armrests, center console, and steering wheel. It, too, is available with a panoramic sunroof.

Winner: Tie

2025 Volkswagen Taos S ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Infotainment

The new Kicks comes out blazing with one of the largest infotainment screens in the small SUV segment. Except for the base Kicks S model with its 7-inch screen, all other Kicks trims come standard with a 12.5-inch landscape-format infotainment touchscreen compared to the free-standing but otherwise old-school-looking 8-inch one in the Taos. All but the base models of the Kicks and Taos feature wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as a wireless phone charger, so drivers can avoid the clutter of USB cables to connect and juice their devices. Both systems are easy to use and maintain an analog volume knob for quick adjustments on the fly.

The Kicks SR can be upgraded to a 10-speaker Bose premium Personal Plus audio system that includes speakers in the front seat headrests, which is one area where a new small SUV buyer may just want to splurge a bit. It’s a feature that’s usually found only in expensive luxury cars and SUVs.

Winner: Nissan Kicks

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Passenger and Cargo Space

Although the 2025 Kicks has grown dimensionally from its 2024 counterpart, it’s still 4 inches shorter in length, 1.6 inches narrower, and 0.3 to 1.1 inches shorter in height compared to the 2025 Taos. While that’s great for squeezing into tight garages and parking spaces, it also results in the Kicks offering slightly less front and rear headroom, rear legroom, rear hip room, and front and rear shoulder room than the Taos. It's the same story with cargo space, although front-wheel-drive versions of the Kicks beat the FWD Taos in terms of room behind the raised rear seats. Most of these dimensional differences are negligible except for rear legroom, where Kicks rear seat passengers give up 3.4 inches compared to the roomier Taos.

Both the Kicks and Taos offer a small amount of hidden storage in and around the spare tire well under the cargo floor. A spare tire is an optional accessory with both SUVs. 

Winner: Volkswagen Taos

2025 Volkswagen Taos SE Black ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Acceleration

Lead-foot drivers (you know who you are) will likely be more satisfied with the everyday performance of the Taos over the Kicks. With its turbocharged 1.5-liter engine, the Taos offers 174 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, significantly greater than the Kicks’ 2.0-liter naturally aspirated 141 hp and 140 lb-ft of torque. The 23 percent edge in power helps give the Taos a big advantage over the Kicks in acceleration. Despite the approximately 200 pounds of extra weight the Taos is hauling around compared to the Kicks, the small VW is a more eager performer and can achieve 60 mph from rest in about 7 seconds compared to a more leisurely 9 seconds in the Kicks. The Taos also has a 31 percentage advantage over the Kicks in torque, its 184 lb-ft kicking in at a mere 1750 rpm, so around-town part-throttle response is better than in the Kicks which has to rev to 4000 rpm to make its peak torque.

The Taos is equipped with a conventional step-shift eight-speed automatic, which has a more natural on-the-road feel than the Nissan’s Xtronic variable-ratio automatic transmission. Although efficient at selecting the best transmission ratio for any given combination of road speed, road load, and throttle position, the Xtronic transmission can sometimes give a disconnected feel and cause the engine to drone on at higher rpm when accelerating. 

Winner: Volkswagen Taos

2025 Volkswagen Taos S ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Fuel Economy

The other side of the coin is fuel economy, a major consideration when pinching pennies to buy a small crossover SUV. EPA estimates show FWD versions of the 2025 Kicks and Taos are evenly matched with a 31-mpg combined city/highway rating for both. However, when equipped with AWD, the Kicks has the advantage with a 30 mpg combined city/highway estimate compared to 28 mpg combined city/highway for the AWD Taos. In real-world driving over 130 miles of mixed freeways and local roads, the trip computer average fuel economy readouts gave the AWD Kicks a slight advantage at 27.1 mpg compared to 26.5 for the AWD Taos.

Winner: Nissan Kicks

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Ride and Handling

Far more nimble than their mid-size SUV corporate cousins, both the 2025 Nissan Kicks and 2025 Volkswagen Taos offer an impressive combination of easy around-town maneuverability, roomy comfort for five passengers, versatile cargo carrying ability, and car-like fuel economy. On the highway and twisty secondary roads, I give the Taos a slight edge with its European-inspired handling, engaging steering, and responsive brakes.

When equipped with available all-wheel drive, both the Kicks and Taos come with multilink independent rear suspension. Front-wheel-drive versions settle for a more basic semi-independent torsion-beam rear suspension, but on smooth pavement, the difference in road feel and ride quality is negligible.

All-wheel drive is added as an option to the Kicks this year, and a new snow mode in the little Nissan is a welcome addition for those buyers in colder climates. Both the Kicks and Taos use an on-demand AWD system, which means they operate in front-wheel drive unless driving parameters detect a loss of traction upon which up to 50 percent of drive torque is directed to the rear wheels. The 4Motion system in the Taos is more comprehensive than the Kicks Intelligent AWD system and offers a driver-selectable, console-mounted dial with on-road, snow and off-road modes, the latter interacting with the VW’s Hill Descent and Hill Start Assist technologies.  

Winner: Volkswagen Taos

2025 Volkswagen Taos S ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Safety and Driver Assistance

When it comes to safety features and advanced driver assistance systems, the Kicks and Taos are pretty evenly matched. The Kicks has 10 standard airbags to the Taos’s six. Both have impressive standard advanced driver-assistance technology. The Kicks is also available with an optional front center airbag that helps keep the driver in place in a side impact.

Both the Kicks and Taos come standard with forward collision warning, lane departure warning, blind-spot and rear cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise control, and automatic high beams. The Taos brings standard Travel Assist (adaptive cruise control with lane centering), which the Kicks offers under the ProPilot Assist moniker in top SR trim only. Unavailable
in the Taos but standard in the Kick SR, however, is a surround-view camera that displays an overhead view of the SUV and its immediate surroundings.

However, the laws of physics catch up to the pair of small crossover SUVs in National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash-test results. In NHTSA testing, the Kicks gets four out of five stars overall but only three stars for frontal impacts. The Taos also receives four stars overall, including a four-star rating
for frontal collisions.

In IIHS testing, the Taos rates only Acceptable for side or small-overlap front impacts, and Marginal for moderate-overlap frontal collisions. The IIHS gives the Kicks gets a Good rating for side and small-overlap front impacts, but a Poor rating for moderate-overlap front impacts. Nevertheless, the Kicks nabs an IIHS Top Safety Pick rating. 

Winner: Tie

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Final Thoughts

As small crossover SUVs, the Nissan Kicks and Volkswagen Taos pack a lot of value for the price. And even with tariffs inflating the pricing of these two products, the ability for entry-level SUV buyers to be able to afford a new vehicle instead of settling for a used one trumps all other considerations in this very price-sensitive end of the market. Both the Taos and Kicks offer a lot of features for the money, are powered by thrifty powerplants that get good gas mileage, have decent cabin and cargo space for five passengers and their duffel, offer a choice of front- or all-wheel drive, and trickle down the latest in infotainment and driver-assistance technology from their respective carmaker’s larger and more expensive offerings.

While the Taos scores some wins over the Kicks in the areas of interior space, acceleration, and handling, the Kicks’ cutting-edge exterior and interior design, more advanced infotainment and significantly lower pricing make it the winner in this small crossover SUV faceoff. 

Winner: Nissan Kicks

2025 Nissan Kicks SR ・ Photo by Ron Sessions