2024 Lincoln Nautilus First Look: Lots Of Screens, Hybrid Power

After launching a fleet of new or updated models in 2019, the last three years have seen Lincoln navigating rough seas, at least at home. While the luxury brand’s U.S. sales fell to their lowest level in almost a decade last year and it’s had to delay its first EV until at least 2025, its growth in China has been spectacular, outpacing its U.S. totals in 2021. All those sales are the reason the brand took the wraps off the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus today at this year’s Shanghai Auto Show. 

Though it won’t arrive in showrooms until early 2024 and it’ll be imported from Hangzhou when it does, Lincoln is hoping the new Nautilus will be a hit on both sides of the Pacific. 

The redesign brings its visuals closer to the smaller Corsair and larger Aviator and breaks some new ground for U.S. Lincolns, but much of that newness is beneath the surface. 

There will be a conventional (non-plug-in) hybrid for the first time and the new Nautilus packs in lots of technology features, including a hands-free driving system. There are also huge and colorful displays, including a 48-inch-wide digital dashboard that answers Mercedes-Benz’s Hyperscreen. It’s possible that so much screen integration might come with a steep learning curve, but it certainly looks impressive. 

Understated Outside, Bold Within

Overall, the new Nautilus’ shape is clearly cut from the same cloth as its crossover brethren. It’s muscular, with a slightly sloping roof and big airy greenhouse. It’s visually understated, but not anonymous, and it integrates the brand’s latest design language without looking gaudy or gimmicky. 

Introduced on the Chinese-market Lincoln Z sedan at the 2021 Shanghai show, the new design theme features a studded grille bisected by a slender LED signature that frames a light-up Lincoln star logo. The grille is a bit less distinctive than the outgoing Continental-inspired look, but it is more contemporary. Also, since the old Nautilus (formerly the second-generation MKX from 2016 to 2018) had been heavily facelifted for that look, the new one seems altogether more cohesive. But it’s the interior where things have really changed.

There’s a new 11.1-inch center stack screen, which is actually a little smaller than the one in the outgoing model, but it’s the curved, 48-inch wide digital dashboard that everyone will notice first. The nearly wall-to-wall screen is actually a pair of 23.6-inch units, one for the driver displaying essential information and the navigation map, the other for the passenger and devoted to entertainment information. This division can be mirrored on the smaller screen, which contains most of the control interfaces. 

Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard for those who prefer those interfaces, as are Amazon Alexa integration and a quartet of USB ports. Happily, Lincoln has kept a rotary volume and power knob and a few other redundant physical controls, and the digital parts of the system will be kept fresh through over-the-air updates. 

The rest of the interior is conventional but sumptuous, at least in pictures. There are new interior theme colors, including “Black Onyx,” with copper-aluminum appliques, a two-tone warm scheme called “Smoked Truffle” and a new “Redwood” Black Label interior as well as what looks like beautiful detail work. Finely-crafted metal grilles house the components of the available 28-speaker audio system and, and the seat stitching looks gorgeous.

It also looks big inside, an impression backed up by Lincoln’s specs. The automaker says the new Nautilus will boast 43.1 inches of rear legroom. That’s 3.5 inches more than the old Nautilus and much more capacious than the Genesis GV80, Mercedes-Benz GLE or BMW X5. Despite its lower roofline and optional panoramic roof, the new Nautilus has also lost only 0.4 inches of rear headroom in the redesign and actually gained some upfront.

All That Tech

The big new screen looks faintly reminiscent of the one in the Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQE SUVs, only it’s better placed in the driver’s line of sight. But it isn’t the only feature targeted at premium customers looking for the fanciest tech. 

Lincoln will include a vast array of active-safety gear including Ford’s BlueCruise 1.2 system, which offers limited hands-free highway driving capability. This adaptive, intelligent cruise control system is comparable to, if not quite as sophisticated as GM’s Super Cruise but, notably, such systems are still rare on the Nautilus’ competitors. Nor is Super Cruise offered on Cadillac’s similarly-sized XT5. BlueCruise 1.2 is capable of hands-free lane changes, repositioning the vehicle in its lane relative to other traffic and even suggesting lane changes.

The 2024 Nautilus’ standard safety suite will also include its standard adaptive cruise control system with stop and go, forward and rear automatic emergency braking, evasive steering assist, surround-view monitoring and lots of other gear. Many of the Nautilus’ German competitors, and Cadillac, make buyers pay extra for similar gear.

On the more gimmicky side, there’s also Lincoln Rejuvenate, which combines sound and visual displays with seat movements to refresh tired drivers. There’s even an optional fragrancer that operates in concert with Rejuvenate, just like at Mercedes-Benz, with scents like “Mystic Forest” and “Ozonic Azure.”

Hybrid Power

There will be two basic powertrains on the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus, and for the first time all models will be all-wheel drive (AWD), with the former front-wheel drive configurations dropped. Lincoln’s adaptive suspension system will still be optional.

Base models will carry over the existing 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, but it’ll now make 250 horsepower and 275 pound-feet of torque. It’ll also retain its eight-speed automatic transmission. For the first time, however, the Nautilus will get a conventional hybrid drivetrain, and one that’s quite a bit punchier than the base model.

Here, the same 2.0-liter turbo will mate with 100 kW electric motor for a combined system output of 310 horsepower. It’ll use a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) instead of the conventional automatic. It should be considerably more fuel efficient than the departed V6 from the outgoing Nautilus.

2024 Lincoln Nautilus: When and How Much? 

Although Lincoln did not announce any pricing at the Shanghai show, either for China or North America, it’s reasonable to expect a jump in price from the current $46,220 starting price of the 2023 model. 

Expect the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus Premiere (a new name for the base grade) to start around $50,000, with the higher Reserve and Black Label trims likely reaching around $55,000 and $71,000 after destination. As with the current V6, ordering the hybrid will mean a price premium on the Premier and Reserve, but it’ll probably be standard on the Black Label.

In a first for Lincoln and a sign of the changing automotive landscape, the 2024 Nautilus will be built in Hangzhou and imported to the U.S., joining the Buick Envision and Volvo S90 among Chinese-built imports. Although what was once “Lincoln-Mercury” imported other vehicles from foreign Ford factories long ago, notably from Germany, they weren’t sold as Lincolns. 

In any case, the company says the new Nautilus won’t arrive in showrooms until the first quarter of 2024.