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Dark Horse Renault-Nissan Is World's 2nd Largest Automaker, Beats Volkswagen

Volkswagen AG, the company that ended 2016 as the world’s largest automaker, continues to show a lack of follow-through. Three months into the year, the Germans fell back to place three. It does not surprise that formerly largest automaker Toyota regained the leadership. The astonishing part is that a dark horse is in second place. With Mitsubishi under its belt, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has upset the top three, and even more surprising, it is nipping at the heels of #1 Toyota.

13.% ahead of the same quarter in 2016, the Alliance is the only contestant on the podium with double-digit gains. With 7.5% growth in the first quarter, Toyota has found back to its steady-as-she goes pace. Volkswagen has lost half a percent compared to Q1 2016. All this according to data release by the automakers...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/04/27/dark-horse-renault-nissan-is-worlds-2nd-largest-automaker-beats-volkswagen/#3596e6ff2b97
 
I doubt CG would have thrown out this dig against TSLA if he thought its model 3 would soon reverse these results:

Renault-Nissan's Ghosn Asserts Leadership In EVs, And The Auto Industry

Renault-Nissan Alliance chairman Carlos Ghosn today threw down the gauntlet to the whole industry, asserting leadership both in the electric vehicle space as in the auto industry as a whole. Not only did Ghosn declare that “we are the worldwide leader of electric vehicles.” He also announced that the Alliance plans to be world’s largest car maker as early as mid-year.

“The Alliance is the worldwide leader in EVs with more than 460,000 EV sold up to today, which is twice as much as our immediate, and most media-driven competitor Tesla,” Ghosn pronounced today at the annual shareholder meeting of Renault in Paris. Ghosn serves also as the CEO of Renault.

“Our range of EVs is the most competitive on the market today, in terms of price and diversity of offer,”...

“The vehicle of the future will be an electric, connected, autonomous car,” Ghosn told his shareholders, leaving no doubt that he wants to lead that future...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/06/15/renault-nissans-ghosn-asserts-leadership-in-evs-and-the-auto-industry/#1f634a462a42
 
CG is certainly sounding serious about alliance BEV plans (even getting another dig at TSLA in during a recent interview) but we're still waiting for the announcement of the next BEV introduction to follow the LEAF gen 2.

.
The Race Is On For The New Mitsubishi Motors CEO

...Mitsubishi wants to go beyond the “low hanging fruit of common purchasing, logistics, and sales finance,” and share in the technologies and global production footprint of the Alliance.

A core part of the plan will be electric vehicles. “Mitsubishi and Nissan were first with pure EVs,” said Masuko. “We thought that EVs were promising, but the price was too big and the range was limited.”

With the scale and technological wherewithal of the Alliance, Mitsubishi wants to overcome these limitations. “We are going to have common platforms, motors, batteries, which will help reduce the cost,” Ghosn said. “You can expect the Alliance to continue being on a full offensive for EVs"....

Ghosn used today’s opportunity to re-assert the Alliance’s leadership in the EV space, and to put Tesla firmly in its place behind the global leader. Said Ghosn:

“The Alliance is the largest producer and seller of EVs. We were the first mass market developer of EVs. We were the first ones to go, and we have the largest product offer of EVs in the world. Tesla is second, and it is way behind.”...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/06/22/the-race-is-on-for-the-new-mitsubishi-motors-ceo/#33cae6872d4d
 
Note the s...

Nissan-Renault Officially World's Largest Automaker At Halftime

Today, at 1:30 p.m. Tokyo time, a long-standing desire of Carlos Ghosn was fulfilled. Ghosn’s life work, the Renault-Nissan Group, can be called World’s Largest Automaker, for the first half of the year, at least. The man who had similar urges, Volkswagen’s Martin Winterkorn, now lives in infamy. His company became world’s largest last year, when Winterkorn was gone. At halftime, Volkswagen was back in #2.

Yesterday, the Renault-Nissan Alliance reported half-year sales of 5,268,079 units. A week earlier, Volkswagen said in its monthly global sales report that it delivered 5,155,600 units in the first six months. Today after lunch, Toyota published its 6 month sales and production results, and said it had sold 5,129,000 units January through June. Ghosn’s Renault-Nissan Alliance was king of the hill...

Carlos Ghosn promised to “continue to leverage our significant economies of scale and global market presence to deliver valuable synergies for our member companies this year, while maintaining a strong technology lineup and offering customers breakthrough electric models.”...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/28/nissan-renault-officially-worlds-largest-automaker-at-halftime/#32e608bf7030

N/R/M sells over 100 times as many cars as TSLA, but TSLA may receive 100 times as much press coverage.

The article below is the exception to this rule, and explains why Elon Musk is (or was) Trump's favorite Auto CEO, and why Carlos Ghosn is certainly not...


If Davos Were a Person, It Would Be Carlos Ghosn


How’s the postnational, transborder, free-trading auto industry CEO faring in the age of Trump? Hop aboard his helicopter...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-20/if-davos-were-a-person-it-would-be-carlos-ghosn?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-businessweek&utm_content=businessweek&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
 
"Modern" union-busting doesn't sound quite as violent as when Henry Ford would regularly order company goons in to crack some heads, but Nissan still should be condemned for adopting the dirty tricks intimidation campaign described below:

Nissan attacked for one of 'nastiest anti-union campaigns' in modern US history

United Auto Workers official condemns company’s efforts to prevent employees from organizing as potentially historic vote approaches in Mississippi


...Nissan has responded with fierce opposition. The company has blitzed local TV with anti-union ads and stands accused of both threatening and bribing workers to vote no. It requires workers to regularly attend anti-union roundtable group meetings as well as one-on-one meetings with their direct supervisors, some of whom have worn “vote no” T-shirts to work.

The Republican governor, Phil Bryant, has also come out hard for Nissan. “If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” Bryant said last week.

Washad Catchings, a Nissan worker, said: “There is no atmosphere of free choice in the Canton plant, just fear, which is what Nissan intends.”...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/01/nissan-mississippi-union-vote
 
^^^
NBR had some brief coverage of this tonight. Skip to 11:30 of http://nbr.com/2017/08/03/nightly-business-report-august-3-2017/. It's about 2 mins, 10 seconds. BBrockman is quoted in it.

FWIW, I heard an NPR hourly news story on this in the morning and it (along with many other sources) asserts that Nissan has 45 plants worldwide and only 3 aren't unionized, all of those are in the US.
 
^^^
Also, in the NPR hourly news story from this morning I recall they also mentioned that currently, no foreign automaker in the US has a unionized US auto plant. (Many examples of this such as BMW, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, etc. Found a list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_assembly_plants_in_the_United_States.)

The NBR story mentioned a partially unionized VW Chattanooga plant though.

NUMMI (former JV between Toyota and GM) was UAW, before it closed and later became Tesla's plant.

FWIW, http://nissan-tennessee.com/about-nissan/ says the Smyrna plant opened in 1983. Seems like workers there have been fine w/no union.
 
I know all about the Japanese manufacturers' hatred of unions. Having them actively fighting a current unionization campaign in the US is a step or two worse. I wonder if GM is going to improve the seats and other smaller things in the 2018 Bolt...
 
LeftieBiker said:
I know all about the Japanese manufacturers' hatred of unions. Having them actively fighting a current unionization campaign in the US is a step or two worse
I don't know about hatred but when I took a tour of http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_business/production/production/japan/general_status/tsutsumi.html in late 2003, I recall the guides mentioning that auto workers are automatically in the union and they have to leave if they enter management. My memory is foggy since that was almost 14 years ago. I recall seeing on the line Gen 2 Prius, Camrys (I think), Lexus ES and some others.

http://www.jaw.or.jp/e/ says
Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' Unions (JAW) was formed in 1972. It has a current membership of about 762,000, and serves as the confederated body for the labor unions of automobile manufacturers, parts makers, sales dealers, transportation companies, and other automobile related companies.
If you click on Organization on the left, items 1 and 2 have some more info, including # of members in each union (e.g. Toyota, Nissan, etc.)

The latter for Nissan says Federation of All Nissan and General Workers' Unions: 139,000 members.
 
Nissan workers reject United Auto Workers in Mississippi
https://www.yahoo.com/news/workers-mississippi-nissan-plant-casting-072418749.html
Representatives of Nissan Motor Co. and the UAW said late Friday that 2,244 workers, or 62 percent, voted against the UAW, while 1,307, or 38 percent, favored the union.
...
The UAW has never fully organized an international automaker in the traditionally anti-union South, although it did persuade some maintenance workers to join at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee. The UAW's lack of influence among southern auto workers has reduced its bargaining power when Detroit automakers lose market share and close plants. After pouring resources into the organizing drive at Nissan, this loss could leave UAW leaders with tough decisions.
...
Workers at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, voted against UAW representation in 1989 and 2001, but this was the first election at the Mississippi plant. The UAW also lost a 2014 vote among all workers at Volkswagen in 2014 before winning a second vote among 160 maintenance workers.
 
I guess we'll only know if Nissan's explanation about it's divestment of battery production below is true, if and when another BEV manufacture orders batteries for their vehicles from the former AESC plant in Smyrna...

What does Nissan's exit from battery business mean?

Implications for next-gen Leaf, and other automakers


Nissan announced this month that it will sell its ownership interest in its battery venture, Automotive Energy Supply Corp., to a Chinese private investment group, GSR Capital. The price was undisclosed, but Bloomberg had reported that acquiring the business would cost $1 billion.

The sale comes as Nissan prepares to introduce the redesigned 2018 Leaf EV...

GSR will receive the venture's two manufacturing plants in Smyrna, Tenn., and Sunderland, England, as well as Nissan's Japanese battery development and engineering operations in Oppama, Atsugi and Zama, Japan — all subject to regulatory approval.

On the surface, GSR's acquisition creates a potentially awkward supply chain reality for Nissan. It will have an outside party producing a core component in a plant on Nissan's property in Smyrna that is integrated into Nissan's adjacent vehicle assembly line.

But by handing over its battery production to an outside supplier, Nissan is freeing up one of the most integrated EV battery production plants on the continent to supply other automakers.

"This will enable GSR to grow its business and look for other opportunities," said Nissan North America spokesman Brian Brockman. "It will give them the scale to further develop their batteries and look for other opportunities."

As the industry moves deeper into electrified vehicle plans, GSR will emerge as a large-capacity battery maker with available North American capacity...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170821/OEM05/170829959/what-does-nissans-exit-from-battery-business-mean
 
Renault-Nissan will expand their electric car ranges and increase savings from closer integration as part of a six-year strategic plan that also fully integrates recently acquired Mitsubishi Motors in their alliance.

The alliance is seeking to build on its leadership in EVs with plans to introduce 12 new full-electric vehicles by 2022, while extending the range and slashing battery costs...

A new platform will provide the underpinnings for a future generation of electric cars. The next Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe EVs will use the platform...
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170915/COPY01/309159987/renault-nissan-deepen-alliance-with-ev-savings-push
 
edatoakrun said:
I guess we'll only know if Nissan's explanation about it's divestment of battery production below is true, if and when another BEV manufacture orders batteries for their vehicles from the former AESC plant in Smyrna...
As if the Nissan owned AESC was constrained from selling to other manufacturers. What garbage.

I gather that China has a blossoming EV industry that on the low end will accept low quality batteries. AESC may well slot in well for that market.
 
SageBrush said:
edatoakrun said:
I guess we'll only know if Nissan's explanation about it's divestment of battery production below is true, if and when another BEV manufacture orders batteries for their vehicles from the former AESC plant in Smyrna...
As if the Nissan owned AESC was constrained from selling to other manufacturers. What garbage.

I gather that China has a blossoming EV industry that on the low end will accept low quality batteries. AESC may well slot in well for that market.

China has strict rules about imported goods. It could simply be that AESC could not sell to Chinese manufacturers (e.g. BYD) unless it became a Chinese-owned business. Which it now has.
 
GetOffYourGas said:
SageBrush said:
edatoakrun said:
I guess we'll only know if Nissan's explanation about it's divestment of battery production below is true, if and when another BEV manufacture orders batteries for their vehicles from the former AESC plant in Smyrna...
As if the Nissan owned AESC was constrained from selling to other manufacturers. What garbage.

I gather that China has a blossoming EV industry that on the low end will accept low quality batteries. AESC may well slot in well for that market.

China has strict rules about imported goods. It could simply be that AESC could not sell to Chinese manufacturers (e.g. BYD) unless it became a Chinese-owned business. Which it now has.

I'd like to know how much NIssan was paid for the factory(s), compared to its investment.
 
European PR below provides few details on two new products as yet not mentioned as planned for USA release.

Nissan unveils electric ecosystem at Nissan Futures 3.0

Oslo, Norway. 2nd October 2017. Nissan today unveiled plans around the four key pillars of its future electric ecosystem in Europe, announcing the launch of new electric vehicles, additional infrastructure investment, battery charging and home storage advances, and a revolutionary new vision to give Nissan customers free power for their EV using its unique bi-directional charging technology...

Nissan also announced its new 2018 range of home and office charging units giving more choice to owners than ever before.

The Nissan double speed 7kW home charger allows Nissan electric vehicle owners to achieve 100% charge in just 5.5 hours – a 70% reduction in charging time from the previous charging technology. The double speed charger has been designed to benefit consumer EV owners, with faster home charging than Nissan has ever offered before.

The Nissan 22kW charger goes even faster, capable of charging your Nissan EV in just 2 hours. Designed for fleet and business owners, the super-fast charger can also be purchased by consumers who want an even quicker charging experience.

Nissan also showcased its new home energy storage system, which follows on from the success of xStorage. Created especially for EV owners, customers can plug their electric vehicle directly into the wall box to charge. It comes with its own built in energy storage system, giving customers the ability to better manage their energy costs and even generate their own electricity from solar panels...

The new range of home and office charging units will be available from early 2018.
http://newsroom.nissan-europe.com/eu/en-gb/media/pressreleases/426205595/nissan-unveils-electric-ecosystem-at-nissan-futures-30
 
UPDATE 3-Nissan to recall all new cars sold in Japan in last 3 years
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/reuters-america-update-3-nissan-to-recall-all-new-cars-sold-in-japan-in-last-3-years.html
* Cars to be re-inspected at a total cost of 25 bln yen

* Nissan expects to take around 1 month to determine cause

* Shares hit five-month low (Adds expert comment, details on recall)

YOKOHAMA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd will recall all 1.2 million new passenger cars it sold in Japan over the past three years after discovering final vehicle inspections were not performed by authorised technicians, it said on Monday.
 
cwerdna said:
UPDATE 3-Nissan to recall all new cars sold in Japan in last 3 years
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/reuters-america-update-3-nissan-to-recall-all-new-cars-sold-in-japan-in-last-3-years.html
* Cars to be re-inspected at a total cost of 25 bln yen

* Nissan expects to take around 1 month to determine cause

* Shares hit five-month low (Adds expert comment, details on recall)

YOKOHAMA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd will recall all 1.2 million new passenger cars it sold in Japan over the past three years after discovering final vehicle inspections were not performed by authorised technicians, it said on Monday.
$220 million USD, or about $180 per re- inspection.
 
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