diff --git a/config/buildSettings.mk b/config/buildSettings.mk
index 9aaf06d88883b42c664ef5d856ea1f6b71748476..458edf428377cc585a1fb5809789f1be2c7978db 100644
--- a/config/buildSettings.mk
+++ b/config/buildSettings.mk
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ ifneq ($(shell which nvcc), )
   # will take precedence over these definitions
   # here when they are set).
   NVCC         ?= nvcc
-  CUDA_VER     ?= $(shell nvcc --version | grep -Po "release \K[0-9\.]+")
+  CUDA_VER     ?= $(shell ${NVCC} --version | grep -Po "release \K[0-9\.]+")
   CUDA_HOME    ?= /usr/local/cuda-${CUDA_VER}
   GENCODEFLAGS ?= $(shell ${FSLCONFDIR}/supportedGencodes.sh ${CUDA_VER})