2025 Chevy Malibu vs 2025 Nissan Altima

• 2025 Chevy Malibu

  

  Starting at

  $25,800^[a]

  2025 Nissan Altima

  

  Starting at

  $28,140 est.

  184 lb-ft	Torque	180 lb-ft
  15.7 cu.ft.	Cargo Space	15.4 cu.ft.
  28/36	MPG city/hwy	27/39

  The sedan segment may be dwindling in terms of variety, but it's still as competitive as ever, and the 2025 Chevy Malibu vs 2025 Nissan Altima more than proves that point. Both companies are still standing behind their midsize sedans as they aim to one-up one another on designing for car shoppers who are looking for good daily drivers, commuter vehicles, or vehicles for a starter family. But what makes a good midsize sedan, and what would compel you to pick one model over another? Well, suppose safety, capacity, or special editions are your top incentives to buy a new midsize sedan; in that case, the Malibu may be your preferred option.

  Both models have been around for multiple generations, and for 2025, Nissan is keeping things simple for the Altima. It essentially carries over its content from the outgoing model after going through a big revamp for the 2023 outing. It's available in both front- and all-wheel drive configurations and provides drivers and passengers alike with a four-door design with a sportback trunk and seating for up to five people. You can get the 2025 Altima with the available VC-Turbo engine on select trims, which range from entry-level options up to more fully-featured ones.

  The 2025 Chevy Malibu also carries over all of its features from the outgoing model year but with the added availability of the Night Shade Metallic exterior color. The Malibu has a single powertrain option in all-wheel drive, with stability management made possible thanks to the StabiliTrak system. The Malibu is also designed in a four-door format with a sportback trunk. Like the Altima, the Malibu can also seat up to five people across two rows. Chevy's sedan can be purchased across four different trim formats, which include the starting LS, the sporty RS, and the 1LT and 2LT.

• Safety

  

  Driver Assistance Tech

  Safety is an extremely important factor when it comes to a vehicle that you plan to use for more than just occasional outings. If you need a good midsize daily driver, then you're going to be dealing with commuting, potential carpooling, ride-sharing, or traveling with family. In that regard, you're going to want the best that the vehicle can offer when it comes to safety—and this is an area where many Chevy vehicles shine because they simply offer some safety features that you do not get from other brands. In this case, it's the Teen Driver mode.

  While the 2025 Nissan Altima comes equipped with the ProPILOT Assist technologies and the Nissan Safety Shield 360, featuring multiple camera views for parking and object avoidance, as well as automated distance management and lane centering, it still lacks a feature like Teen Driver mode. Yes, you have remote access, remote start, and features like automatic emergency braking with cross-traffic alerts, but there is still nothing to help keep your teen safe behind the wheel when you aren't present. This is where the safety features greatly separate in quality between the Altima and the Malibu.

  With the 2025 Chevy Malibu, you not only have many of the same safety and driver assistance tools as the Altima thanks to the suite of features bundled into the Chevy Safety Assist, which includes automatic emergency braking, lane centering assistance, lane departure warnings, and pedestrian detection, but you also get the Teen Driver mode as a standard implementation. This feature can relieve a lot of stress from parents because you have the added safety checks in place for when your teen gets behind the wheel.

  The Teen Driver mode features pre-launch safety checks, Buckle-to-Drive (to ensure passengers are buckled up before taking off), as well as a report card to monitor what safety features were used during travel, average distance, and top speeds. It adds a lot of value to this midsize sedan and is indispensable for those who value safety for their family.

• Capacity

  

  Rear Cargo Space

  Cargo capacity in sedans isn't always a big sell for a lot of people because you know that space is going to be limited in a five-seater car. However, not all midsize sedans have the same amount of space available—and in this regard, the 2025 Chevy Malibu does manage to edge out a small victory over the 2025 Nissan Altima. This is thanks to offering slightly more cargo capacity in the trunk area compared to the Altima.

  The 2025 Nissan Altima's total trunk space tops out at 15.4 cu.ft. This gives you some good space to utilize as a midsize sedan, and you can definitely store plenty of groceries, work supplies, school gear, or some light outdoor adventure equipment in the back of the trunk. By comparison, the 2025 Chevy Malibu offers up to 15.7 cu.ft. of cargo volume in the trunk space, just 0.3 cu.ft. of additional capacity over the Altima. While it may not seem like much, it can make a difference in how much you can store in the back of each vehicle's trunk.

  In the case of the Malibu, for instance, the extra space allows you to store almost 8.5 additional liters in the trunk of the Malibu, or nearly 9 quarts more than the Altima. In more practical applications, that rounds out to a little over 2.2 gallons of additional capacity. That means you could store additional luggage or two extra gallons of milk.

  While the space may not seem significant, the extra capacity means extra storage, and that means more groceries, more supplies, more equipment, and fewer trips to carry goods, or reducing the need to have to carry your personal belongings in the backseat. So, if maximizing your space is an important selling point for a midsize sedan, the 2025 Malibu does manage to beat the Altima ever-so-slightly in this category.

• Variants

  

  Unique Special Editions

  With most car brands offering multiple trims for a model-year outing, you usually have some neat options to choose from when it comes to features. This gives drivers with different expectations and financial responsibilities an opportunity to buy something suitable. However, some car brands go a step further, offering unique appearance or feature packages in the form of special editions to help give shoppers a reason to shop for that specific nameplate, and that's precisely what Chevy has done with the 2025 Malibu.

  You have three different special editions available for the Malibu in the form of the Redline Edition, the Sport Edition, and the Midnight Edition. The Sport Edition comes packed with some cool options like black Malibu badging, a blacked-out grille, and 19-inch black-painted aluminum wheels. The Redline Edition features black bowtie emblems, a blacked-out grille, black mirror caps, 19-inch black-painted aluminum wheels with red hash marks, and black Malibu badging with a red outline in a summit white exterior color. The Midnight Edition has a blacked-out appearance with matching black Malibu badging, black bowtie emblems, 19-inch black painted aluminum wheels, and a Mosaic Black Metallic color scheme, along with a blacked-out grille and dark chrome surround.

  The special editions made available for the 2025 Chevy Malibu add a lot of appeal for those looking for a midsize sedan that offers a bit of visual flair to its model-year outing. The Altima, while quite stylish, is only available in its standard trims, and for the latter half of the generation, Nissan has not offered the Altima with any special editions. So, in the debate about the 2025 Chevy Malibu and Nissan Altima's special editions and packages, the Malibu clearly comes out on top.

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