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Watch Carlos Ghosn's news conference live from Beirut

The former head of Nissan-Renault says he's speaking out to clear his name and shed light on an unjust system of Japanese justice. Timeline: The rise, fall and flight of Carlos Ghosn Follow our Adam Morath, who has been maintaining a running summary on Twitter:   This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Government/Legal Nissan Renault Carlos Ghosn

Nissan Cube dead for 2015

Another class cut-up has graduated from our motor pool. The Nissan Cube's indefatigable weirdness was likely both its chief selling point and its Achilles Heel, but Autoblog sources say that after a six-year run in the US, the niche player has been scrubbed from the Japanese automaker's lineup.
The move is hardly unexpected - there was confirmation from Nissan Canada that it was pulling the plug on the asymmetric little front-driver in its market back in May, and sales have not exactly been sparkling here in the States, either. In June, Nissan shifted just 336 Cubes, down 23.8 percent year over year. So far this year, Nissan has sold 2,294 units, a sales pace off 30.9 percent versus 2013. At its peak in 2010, the Cube remained firmly a niche vehicle, selling 22,968 units.
Nissan North America's Dan Passe, senior manager of product communications, maintains that "We are continuing to sell the 2014 Cube and we haven't made an announcement about future model plans," but Autoblog sources indicate that an official announcement will be coming in the next couple of months, and the Cube has been conspicuously left off of an exhaustive 2015 lineup "Charting the Changes" announcement released on Tuesday.

Recharge Wrap-up: Nissan, Tesla report CO2 savings, rare earth metal recycling simplified

A new process simplifies the recycling of rare earth metals. While the strong magnetic properties of metals like neodymium and dysprosium make them useful in electric vehicles traction motors, there are concerns about their availability and the environmental costs of mining them. Researchers at University of Pennsylvania have developed an easier method to recycle those metals that is less energy intensive and more cost effective. "We have designed a way to separate the two metals by selectively dissolving the neodymium in a solution and leaving behind the dysprosium as a solid," says Justin Bogart, a graduate student working on the project. "This quick and easy method has allowed us to separate equal mixtures of the metals into samples that are 95 percent pure." Now the team is working to improve that level of purity. Read more from University of Pennsylvania. Nissan Leaf drivers in Europe have saved over 55,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Worldwide, the 178,074 Leafs sold account for the prevention of over 293,000 tons of CO2 emissions so far. That equates that to the neutralizing effect of 19 million trees. Besides the positive effects on environmental and noise pollution that switching to electric mobility provides, Nissan also points out that it's good business, too. EVs like the Nissan Leaf and e-NV200 cost about 40 percent less than combustion vehicles to maintain, and the cost of electricity is substantially lower than that of fossil fuels. Additionally, Nissan has published a video of the Leaf touring Bristol to celebrate the greening of European cities with the help of electric vehicles. See the video, and read more from Nissan. Tesla customers have driven a cumulative 1 billion miles. Together, nearly 75,000 Model S drivers have prevented more than 570,000 tons of CO2 emissions worldwide. To put that in perspective, a billion miles is the equivalent of 4,186 trips to the moon, and almost 40,000 trips around the Earth. In the UK, where the Model S is celebrating its one-year anniversary, drivers have already accumulated 6.6 million miles. Tesla is celebrating its milestone with the Next Billion Miles Tour, hosting hands-on events and test drives in 80 cities across North America, Europe and Asia. See the video from Tesla above, visit the One Billion Miles microsite and read more in the press release below.