Summary: A discretization scheme based on exponential fitting mixed finite elements is developed for the quasi-hydrodynamic (or nonlinear drift-diffusion) model for semiconductors. The diffusion terms are nonlinear and of degenerate type. The presented two-dimensional scheme maintains the good features already shown by the mixed finite elements methods in the discretization of the standard isothermal drift-diffusion equations (mainly, current conservation and good approximation of sharp shapes). Moreover, it deals with the possible formation of vacuum sets. Several numerical tests show the robustness of the method and illustrate the most important novelties of the model.