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Renault COO Tavares dreams of running GM or Ford

What do you do if you're in a job with no upward mobility? Admittedly, most of us just stick it out while secretly hoping our boss is sacked for all those paperclips he's been swiping, netting us a nice, shiny promotion. Then again, most of us aren't the number two at Renault, like Carlos Tavares.
Tavares is the right-hand man to Renault CEO, Carlos Ghosn, and like a lot of us, he's ready for another challenge. As Ghosn is only 59 years old and doesn't have a boss to fire him for paperclip theft, though, it's pretty unlikely that he'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Tavares doesn't seem too concerned, based on an interview he gave to Automotive News. "We have a big leader and he is here to stay," Tavares told AN.
What's surprising is where Tavares wants to go, "Why not GM? I would be honored to lead a company like GM." The Renault exec also mentioned Ford, and as AN points out, both organizations make a lot of sense. Both are led by CEOs that are approaching or are already past retirement age, and should be looking for dedicated replacements in the not-so-distant future. That doesn't mean Tavares is a shoe-in, though.

Nissan to expand next-gen Titan with more engines, configurations

Not much has changed with the Nissan Titan in the decade that it's been on the market, but the 2015 model year could move the needle enough to turn the truck from an "also ran" in the fullsize truck market to more of a contender. Edmunds had the chance to sit down with Pierre Loing, vice president of product and advanced planning and strategy for Nissan North America, who indicated that not only will a new truck be coming for 2015, it is also expected to take a bigger chunk of the truck market currently dominated by Ford and General Motors.
For starters, the article quotes Loing saying that the next-gen Titan could sell 100,000 units, which is almost five times the number of Titans and the same number of Toyota Tundra trucks sold last year. To accomplish this, Nissan is planning to offer a wider number of models (including a regular cab version) and more powertrain options; we're sure this means Nissan is considering offering a V6. The addition of a regular-cab, V6 Titan would also allow this truck to be more competitively priced.
Will that be enough to attract buyers away from the Big Three domestic trucks? We'll just have to wait and see...

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.