Soon after Carlos Ghosn took over as chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Corp., he took a gamble by building a factory in Mississippi to produce big pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. Now, a decade later, he's steering in the opposite direction, ramping up production of small electric cars. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ghosn, chief executive of both Nissan and its French alliance partner, Renault SA, says in an interview the companies will launch four electric vehicles globally, with three of them coming to the U.S. - including the Nissan Leaf compact, a light commercial vehicle suitable for use by companies such as FedEx, and, eventually, an electric car to be marketed under the Infiniti luxury brand. "Our forecast is that sales of electric vehicles will be 10 percent of the total market . . . by 2020," he says. Click here for a photo of the Nissan Leaf. Ghosn is responding to demand driven by a market created and sustained in large measure by government policy. In the U.S., the government is offering $7,500 tax credits to buyers of electric vehicles, and is spreading around billions in loans and stimulus program grants to launch electric-vehicle production. Click here for Ghosn's plans for Nissan's electric vehicle offerings.
President Barack Obama pledged to move forward on a free trade accord with South Korea that has been stuck for two years, but few expect much movement soon in Congress. According to the Wall Street Journal, many observers say Obama will be reluctant to force Democratic lawmakers to a vote on a trade agreement with South Korea amid a bruising battle over health care legislation and before midterm elections a year from now. Soon after Obama boarded a plane home, Rep. John Dingell (D - Mich.) weighed in with a fresh call to rethink the agreement. "Before we move forward with the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, I feel it necessary to remind my colleagues in Congress that the draft agreement allows Korean discriminatory treatment of imported U.S. automobiles to perpetuate," Dingell said. Certain Korean cars are among America's bestsellers, he said, while U.S. auto makers have "grave difficulties accessing the Korean market." Click here for AIADA Chairman Russ Darrow's take on trade at Automotive News. Obama gave no firm timetable for submission to Congress. At a news conference with Obama, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak cautioned that South Korea is moving forward on trade deals with Europe that are opening Korean markets to U.S. competitors. Click here for a chart showing the gap in value of trade in Korean goods and U.S. goods. Click here for more on Obama's trip to Korea to discuss a pending free trade agreement.
According to CNN, carmaker MINI is preparing to launch a new special edition of the subcompact icon outfitted by its ultra-luxury cousin Rolls-Royce. Both British automakers are owned by Germany's BMW. The special edition cars will go into production in 2010 as 2011 model year cars. It has not been decided yet whether the cars will be available in the United States. If they are made available to U.S. customers, they'll be in extremely limited numbers, said a company spokesperson. The cars' bodies will be no different from those of other Mini Coopers, but they will be coated in a special paint, the color of which has also not been decided. The cars will be built at the Mini factory in Oxford. It has not yet been decided if the cars will brought to Rolls-Royce's factory for final outfitting with special high-end interior trim and other luxury touches or if the Rolls-Royce produced luxury materials will be added to the cars on the MINI assembly line. MINI announced in May that it was considering a high-end special edition car. Up to now, however, the company had not officially confirmed production of a Rolls-Royce edition. Click here for more on MINI's planned collaboration with Rolls-Royce.
Americans have bought international cars by the boatload for decades. First it was the Volkswagen Beetle, then the Honda Civic, and the Toyota Corolla. So clearly we are willing to buy foreign oddities. But, according to MSNBC, some of them may be a little too foreign. Here is MSNBC's roundup of foreign cars that don't just look foreign, they look alien. These are the kinds of vehicles that leave Americans scratching their heads rather than whipping out their wallets. But who knows? Times change. One of the list's oddballs, the Smart fortwo, is already for sale in the U.S. and the Fiat 500 is slated to arrive in a couple years. So maybe the Citroen Nemo is a future American best-seller? Nah, but it is still fun to look at. Click here to view the entire list of some of the strangest looking international vehicles through the years.
Members of Chinese auto maker Geely's management team are in Sweden this week to discuss the company's bid for Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo car brand. According to Automotive News, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, the parent of Geely Automobile, was named by Ford as a preferred bidder for its money-losing Swedish unit last month. One of toughest issues the sides face is the transfer of Volvo's intellectual property rights. According to a Chinese newspaper report on Tuesday, a Geely spokesman in Chine said the sides have already decided that Volvo will retain the rights for its licensed technologies but will allow Geely to use the technologies. Earlier this month, it was reported that Geely would build a new Volvo plant in China capable of making 300,000 vehicles a year. Volvo could sell 1 million cars a year globally within four or five years, compared with recent annual sales of about 400,000 vehicles. Ford and Geely have not disclosed a possible sale price for Volvo, but media reports suggested it could be closer to $2 billion than the $6.45 billion Ford paid for the Swedish automaker in 1999. Click here for more on Ford's talks with Chinese auto maker Geely regarding takeover of its Volvo unit.
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