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Nissan: We lose money on each Leaf replacement battery

Nissan has been playing its cards pretty close to its chest when it comes to the production costs for Leaf battery packs. The company recently put a price on replacement batteries for customers at $5,500 plus the requirement to return the old battery. If the decommissioned battery is worth $1,000 to Nissan, as they have stated, that means the battery costs about $6,500 to make, right? Maybe even less if Nissan wants to turn a profit, as automakers are wont to do? Wrong.
Green Car Reports spoke to Nissan about these battery costs, and found that the automaker actually loses money on selling the replacement battery for the Leaf at the current price. Jeff Kuhlman, Nissan's vice president of global communications said, "Nissan makes zero margin on the replacement program. In fact, we subvent every exchange." All you English majors will know that "subvent" is a fancy way to say "subsidize." Kuhlman added, though, "We have yet to sell one battery as part of the program."
The fact that Nissan offers its replacement batteries for less than it costs to manufacture them is telling of a company both cares about what its customer needs and is dedicated to the success of its product. In this case, both of those things encourage people to give up fossil fuels and adopt electric mobility, which is heartening. As more people switch to battery-powered driving, though, battery technology should become better and cheaper, and the scale of production should cause manufacturing costs to decrease. Eventually, Nissan could easily see itself breaking even selling the Leaf battery replacements.

Nissan wants French State out of its alliance with Renault

While it's called the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the French side actually throws around a lot of weight in the relationship, and the government there is the largest shareholder. Meanwhile, the Japanese company generates about two-thirds of the sales. As leader of both automakers, Carlos Ghosn is reportedly now working to put more control into the Nissan side, according to insiders speaking to Reuters. The French State is expected to fight hard against losing sway. The government in France prompted Ghosn's distrust after buying up 19.7 percent of Renault's stock, from a previous 15 percent. Officials snubbed the CEO by giving him just a few hours notice, according to Reuters. Now, the boss is looking for ways to mitigate state control, but to make this plan happen Ghosn needs formal approval from the Renault board. If successful, the proposed plan would overhaul the close partnership between the automakers. Whereas the French side currently has the final say in decisions, this move would grant both of them equal power. In addition, Nissan would become the largest owner of Renault, but the French wouldn't have the same control over its Japanese ally. The French government isn't ready to just hand over power to Ghosn, though, because it reportedly wants to protect jobs in the country. The Alliance "must not be destabilized by governance changes or adjustments that could also lead to conflicts of interest," Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said to Reuters. Clearly, this fight is just beginning. Related Video:

Nissan's Nismo celebrates 30th year with video retrospective

Nismo, the motorsports and high-performance arm of Nissan, has a lot of racing success to celebrate in its history and possibly even bigger accomplishments to look forward to. The company is commemorating its 30th anniversary with a video looking back at its most important milestones from each year of its past.
Nismo's job first and foremost at its genesis was to excel at motorsports. It wasn't too long after the division was founded in 1984 that the company made its first of many attempts to take an overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It never quite succeeded in that goal, but still managed to do well in long-distance competition elsewhere. At the same time, Nismo was racking up wins in touring car races in Japan.
Eventually, the division's engineers started dipping their toes into tuning road cars, in addition to going racing. What began as something sporadic has become a growing part of the Nissan lineup with Nismo-branded models of the 370Z, Juke, Note in Europe and the GT-R.