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Scary news is news that people read. We get it. It’s far easier to focus on the imaginary stories and sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) than it is to report factually on things like vehicle prices. This story will likely not rank nearly as high as, let’s say, a story about how semiconductor tariffs will make your car “A LOT more expensive…” without telling you how much more expensive by dollar or percent, or why. Like this one.
I prefer to present facts and let the reader form their own opinion and expectations based on those facts. With that in mind, let’s look at some positive vehicle pricing news. Nissan has just announced its prices for the 2026 Frontier pickup. This mid-sized pickup is one of our very favorite trucks. Nissan has resisted the urge to go “ten-tenths” with the Frontier PRO-4X’s off-road capability, and that translates to a very capable truck that is more real-world user-friendly than the Tacoma TRD Pro. Nissan also kept the Frontier an actual truck, with a full frame and many useful features, which differentiates it from the Maverick and Ridgeline. Finally, the Frontier is a truck with a lot of manual switches and knobs, which makes it absolutely nothing like a Cybertruck – and we mean that in a good way.
Let’s look at some of the popular trims of this pickup and compare the current prices for 2025 with the new prices for the 2026 Frontier to see how much they change. After we compare the prices, we’ll discuss whether these prices show any meaningful impact from tariffs. Because I don’t pander, I’m including the Nissan Destination and Handling fee in all of these prices.
As you can see, both the lowest price and the highest price trims of the Nissan Frontier change less than 1% heading into the new model year. Since we are looking ahead, we cannot know the change to incentives, so these are just the sticker prices of the truck, including the pesky Destination and Handling fee that many publications pretend to forget to include when they pander, excuse us, “report” price changes. The cost goes from $1,510 in 2025 to $1,695, and as we have said (three times), we’ve included the fee in all of our examples. We also don’t know the exact dealer Doc Fee that the Nissan dealers will charge customers, but any change would have zero correlation to tariffs, since it is entirely made up anyway.
The Nissan Frontier is built in Canton, Mississippi, which has been part of the United States since 1817. So, this truck is not an import, and thus, it is not directly subject to any tariffs. Nissan also builds the Frontier’s 3.8-liter V6 engine in the United States. The lamestream media likes to pretend that all of the parts for U.S.-assembled vehicles are imported, but in the case of the Frontier, its Monroney sticker points out that only 20% of its parts are made in Japan. It’s the transmission, which Nissan uses globally in many of its vehicles.
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With a less than 1% change in price for the most and least expensive trims, and all trims changing by just a few hundred dollars, the Nissan Frontier will be more affordable for many in 2026 because the value of the dollar will change downward in 2026. The Frontier’s price is changing by less than a third of the rate of inflation.
If you are looking for vehicles with flat-out price decreases in 2026, there are many to be found. Here are a few quick examples we have previously reported on.
Tariffs? What Tariffs? Nissan Announces Four-Figure Price Cuts to 2025 Rogue and Pathfinder One Day Before 25% Auto Tariffs Are Set to Begin
Kia’s Genius Move to Build Its U.S. Models In Georgia Allows It to Drop Prices On Popular EV9 Battery-Electric SUV Trims for 2026 Model Year – While Tariffs Hurt Brands With Poor Foresight
Kia’s 2026 Seltos Slashes $1,500 Off Base MSRP: Affordable, Stylish, and Tariff-Proof
Since we’ve focused on facts instead of FUD, we assume the readers either ignored the story or bailed out when they got to the part where numbers proving the story premise were so rudely included. If you managed to hang in there to this point, please do us a favor and add a comment below. You’ll be expanding on the discussion by doing so. Thank you for reading.
John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
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Source: torquenews.com
