The facelifted model will be built at Nissan’s Sunderland plant and will be equipped with stage one autonomous drive technology that will provide ‘single lane control’ in heavy traffic conditions on highways. The technology will launch in Japan this year and from 2017 in Europe.

The carmaker said the move represents an important milestone in its effort to launch a range of vehicles with autonomous drive technologies by 2020.

Paul Willcox, chairman, Nissan Europe, said: “The Nissan Qashqai has always been a trailblazer in the market so it’s fitting that customers will get to experience the future of mobility in our award-winning crossover as early as 2017.

“It's a car people love. It's a car people trust. It pioneered the crossover boom, and now it will spearhead Nissan's move towards launching a range of vehicles with autonomous drive capabilities from 2017. Yet again, we are taking technology normally found in premium cars and making it accessible to millions of motorists.

“The introduction of Piloted Drive technologies will be an evolution not a revolution as the building blocks for this are already in place in many of our cars today through our Safety Shield Technology,” added Willcox. “With the driver in control, we want to remove the pain-points of being behind the wheel, like navigating heavy traffic, to put the excitement back into driving.”