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Mitsubishi, Nissan will build mini EV together

That minicar project that erstwhile competitors Nissan and Mitsubishi launched about four years ago is about to go a little more maxi. NMKV Co., the joint venture established in June 2011 by the two Japanese automakers to make minicars, is going to get more resources specifically to ease a move into the electric-vehicle sector. Specifically, Nissan, which makes the all-electric Leaf, is going to have a bigger role in the testing, design, and development of the partnership's mini EVs. A memorandum of understand between Nissan and Mitsubishi, maker of the i-MiEV, is in the works. So far, the joint-venture has sold about 500,000 gas-powered three-cylinder compact vehicles under the two automotive brands, so it must be doing something right. The first Nissan Dayz and the Mitsubishi eK Wagon models started production in 2013. Sales of the Nissan Dayz Roox and Mitsubishi eK Space, which went the higher-roof route, began early last year. Nissan and Mitsubishi started making noise about this last summer, when word came out that the little EV may be priced at less than $15,000 in Japan, quite a bit cheaper than either the Leaf or the i-MiEV over there. As with the current models, the future minicar variants will be produced at Mitsubishi's Mizushima factory in Japan. So far, the partnership would only say that details about NMKV's next-generation mini EV will be released "at a later time," so specifics like range and other performance measures will have to wait. Until then, you can take a look at NMKV's press release below. Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors and NMKV reach agreement on planning and development of next-generation minicars Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, and their joint venture NMKV Co., Ltd. today reached an agreement to continue their joint project regarding development of the next generation of current minicar models. The three companies will soon sign a memorandum of understanding. The companies aim to develop more competitive products by optimizing resource allocation and their respective roles and responsibilities. Nissan will be more deeply involved in development operations, such as design development and testing. In addition to its product planning and project development roles, NMKV will strengthen its management capabilities by adding a new department to enhance collaboration with engineering and manufacturing functions. Vehicle production is planned to continue at Mitsubishi's Mizushima Plant.

Nissan's autonomous cars could drive in US first, maybe by 2020

Future shock could be just six short years away, and coming first to the US. Nissan says it might start making autonomous versions of its cars available in the US by 2020, before the tech hits the road in other countries. The Japanese automaker is in extensive discussions with regulators from California, the best-selling state for the Leaf battery-electric vehicle, for allowing self-driving vehicles to be on its roads, Hybrid Cars says, citing a conversation with Nissan executive Andy Christensen at the recent Detroit Auto Show. Many decisions need to be made between now and then, given the hurdles related to issues such as regulations, liability, safety and technology - and Christensen said the first wave of self-driving vehicles would be able to do their thing only on the highway. The vehicle of choice is most likely to be the Leaf because it's completely battery operated, making the conversion to autonomy that much easier. Last summer, Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn first promised production autonomous cars by 2020. The automaker has teamed up with MIT, Stanford, Oxford and others to extensively test its "Autonomous Drive" concepts since then. Late last year, Nissan tested a self-driving Leaf on Japanese public roads. Nissan is not alone promoting autonomous driving as a way to increase safety, fuel economy and traffic flow, just some of the reasons why the idea may be the wave of the nearer-than-we-thought-future. For example, the company says 93 percent of accidents are caused by driver error.

Ghosn's legacy: one of the auto industry's most effective execs

"Bob Lutz ... estimated that carrying out the Nissan operation would be the equivalent, for Renault, of putting $5 billion in a container ship and sinking it in the middle of the ocean." So wrote Carlos Ghosn in "SHIFT: Inside Nissan's Historic Revival," which was published in the U.S. in late 2004. Two points about that observation: It is in keeping with Lutz's "Often wrong but never in doubt." It shows that Ghosn is a remarkable executive, given that he was able to take Nissan from the edge of financial oblivion to one of the foremost automotive companies (although with alliance partners Renault and, more recently, Mitsubishi). In 1999, Ghosn created what was named the "Nissan Revival Plan." It could have just as well been called the "Nissan Resuscitation Plan." Things were that bad. Now Ghosn is in the midst of legal trouble, accused of financial improprieties of some sort. There is no indication that this is at anything near the scale of what happened at Volkswagen Group. There's malfeasance. And then there's malfeasance. It is likely that this is going to be the end of Ghosn's career, but at age 64, and as a man who has spent nearly the past quarter-century essentially on airplanes, it is probably a good time to leave the stage. What his next act will be — to court or even prison — is an open question. But arguably, Ghosn's performance in the transformation of Nissan and Renault, which also needed some strong medicine to keep it from collapse in the early '00s (although one suspects that the French government would have done its damnedest to keep it propped up), makes him one of the all-time most-notable executives in the auto industry. Ghosn closed plants in both France and Japan and he worked to dismantle the Nissan keiretsu network of interlocked companies, things that were absolutely unthinkable. He established plans with stretch goals in their titles, like the "20 Billion Franc Cost-Reduction Plan," and worked with his people to achieve them, despite the pushback that seemed to come along with the announcement of the plan. As in, as he recalled in SHIFT, "Some people said, 'He's off the deep end. He's raving mad. Doesn't he know that at Renault you set the most conservative goals possible so you can be certain to reach them?' My answer to that sort of thinking was 'You're going to get what you ask for. If you set the bar too low, you'll be a low-level performance.