[Car Review] Nissan Serena Smart 8: She blends to your every needs

The Nissan Serena has always been about flexibility. She blends to your every whim, shape-shifts for every errand, and excels at absorbing the unpredictable demands of Singapore family life without ever feeling cramped. The new Serena Smart 8 variant takes that philosophy one step further.

Picture this. You’ve parked your 7-seater at the void deck, the kids are already clipped in, the grandparents are telling everyone to hurry up, and then she appears. That one extra auntie. The one who wasn’t on the WhatsApp planning chat but has decided, very firmly, that she too would like to come along for dinner at Jumbo. She’s in her best dress. She’s clutching an LV handbag that may or may not be authentic (you’ve learned, over many years, not to ask). She’s checking her lipstick in your wing mirror. She is not taking a Grab (because she insists she doesn’t know how to use it).

In every other MPV you have ever owned, this is the moment where the seating logic collapses. Seven seats with seven people already in them means the uncomfortable question of placing one kid on somebody’s lap. You have to pick between inclusiveness and safety. It is a terrible spot to be in.

But in the Smart 8, you simply sigh, lift the centre armrest from between the driver and front passenger, slide it backwards along its rails, and click it neatly into place in the second row between the two captain chairs. Eight seats. You are done. Auntie is in. Hopefully there’s no extra uncle or auntie still hiding at the lift lobby.

The Smart 8 module, explained

The Smart 8 module is the variant’s defining feature, and the thing that separates it from every other Serena on the road. In normal, day-to-day driving it lives between the driver and front passenger as a small foldable centre armrest, with a proper storage cavity underneath.

When an eighth seat is needed, it slides rearward into the second row and becomes a full-sized middle seat, giving you three across and eight total. When it isn’t, it returns to the front, the captain chairs reopen their walkthrough, and you’re back to a civilised 7-seater.

This is it. No tools, no pre-trip briefing, no extra seat stored away in the yard gathering cobwebs until the next big outing. The Smart 8 gives you proper captain chairs for 364 days a year, and pops out an extra seat only on the one auntie day you didn’t plan for.

Everything else the Serena already did well

As this Smart 8 module is added to the Highway Star Prestige trim, other quality of life features are still here. Twin power-operated sliding doors that open wide enough for a grandmother with a walker, second-row tray tables that fold out of the front seatbacks for snacks on a Sunday drive and diamond-quilted Nappa leather all through.

The tech package is generous. Wireless Apple CarPlay connects before you’ve reversed out of the lot. The digital instrument cluster is clean and legible. Climate controls are physical, which is the correct choice for a family car.

And the ultra-sharp 360-degree camera excels in tight local carparks and roads, which helps you park the car faster than the hatchback next to you.

The third row that earns its seat

Here is the other bit of Serena engineering that doesn’t get enough credit. There’s magic in the third-row bench.

Firstly, the third-row bench slides on rails, forwards and backwards. What this means is that you can adjust the amount of space you have in your boot, which makes fitting medium-sized luggages possible even with the third-row seats in use.

And if you don’t need that third-row bench, you can get rid of it by folding it up to get maximum boot space.

Typically, competitors tend to drop the third row into a well in the floor, which sounds great but in practice leaves a shallow, awkward cargo area. The Serena folds the third row upward and tucks it against the cabin walls, giving you a genuinely flat loading bay from the boot opening all the way to the back of the second row. Prams, foldable bicycles, IKEA flat-packs, all easily handled with no issues.

The Octo-pacity Test

Regular readers know the Octo-pacity Test. For everyone else: I measure the volume of enclosed cabin storage with octopus plushies.

Despite the centre console’s double role as the 8th seat, the armrest storage still holds two octopus comfortably. That’s more than I expected.

The glovebox fits five, and the shelf above the glovebox takes a bonus of two more, though this one strictly speaking is an open shelf rather than enclosed storage, so it doesn’t earn a formal rating. The convenient open shelf is spacious enough to fit two phones, make-up supplies, a tissue box, and any other random bits and bolts that your wife conveniently forget to bring home.

For a closer look at the cabin, check out our 360-degree view here.

e-POWER: Nissan’s quiet (literally) masterstroke

The Serena’s e-POWER drivetrain deserves a proper explanation, because it is still commonly misunderstood. Unlike most other hybrid implementations, the 1,433cc three-cylinder petrol engine does not drive the wheels. So it does not really matter how big or small engine is. Its only job is to generate electricity to feed the 161bhp electric motor with a peak torque of 315Nm. In practice, driving the Nissan Serena e-POWER is akin to driving an electric vehicle, with power delivered all at once, instantly.

Nissan claims 20.4 km/L combined. I came close doing mostly expressway driving over the weekend. There’s an EV button for full-electric crawling when you want the car to remain quiet without disturbing others. If you long press on the EV button, Serena will attempt to run its engine more to charge up the battery to enable a longer pure EV drive duration later on. For those who love single-pedal drives of EV, the e-Pedal mode here allows you to replicate that experience.

Serene by name, serene by nature

The Serena is not a corner-carver, and you are not going to drive it like one. What it is, properly, is the calmest place in the segment. Suspension compliance is excellent at this price. Road noise is well suppressed, so conversations with the third row happen at indoor volumes. My 6-year-old actually fell asleep while heading back from our kite-flying family outing, something she hasn’t done in a while on any car.

Steering is light, accurate, and completely unbothered, which makes such a tall and large vehicle easily manageable in those pesky tight multi-storey carparks. The lack of any conventional transmission and gear ratio also meant no hesitation, no gear-hunt, no jerkiness. And these contribute to passenger comfort.

Are you right for the Serena Smart 8?

You are right for the Smart 8 if your family size flexes between 6 and 8 passengers, if you want captain-chair comfort as the default, if you want full flexibility in that third row configuration, and if you want an hybrid e-POWER drivetrain that actually sips fuel in real-world driving despite the car’s size.

That is a lot of “ifs”, but you get the idea.

I wouldn’t consider the Smart 8 a full-time 8 seater, so you are not right for the Smart 8 if you genuinely need 8 seats every single day. You are also not right for it if you want a car to attack Rifle Range Road or 99 bend on weekends. That is the task for another Nissan. The GTR.

For me, the Smart 8 is the Serena variant I would actually buy. Because it keeps every one of the standard Serena’s strengths intact, and is affordable. As of writing (April 2026), you only need to cough up just S$2,000 to get the 8th seat (S$ 231,800 vs S$ 229,800 for the Highway Star Prestige trim, S$ 236,800 vs S$ 234,800 for the Highway Star Prestige Touring Edition).

The Nissan Serena Smart 8 used for this review was provided by Nissan Singapore. All opinions expressed are the author’s own and have not been influenced by the brand.