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Nissan and Renault chief engineers meeting to revive joint projects

PARIS — Renault's engineering boss will meet his counterpart at Nissan in Japan this week, two sources close to Renault said, as the carmakers seek to revive projects crucial to an alliance left reeling by the Carlos Ghosn affair. The Franco-Japanese alliance is wrestling with the fallout of the ouster and arrest of Ghosn, the architect of the partnership who now says it is at risk of collapse. Analysts say that in order to turn investor sentiment around, the firms need to make good on cost-saving joint engineering projects that have slowed since Ghosn's departure. According to the two sources, Gilles Le Borgne, who was hired on Jan. 6 from rival automaker PSA, will meet Nissan's Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, the Nissan executive in charge of delivering the joint engineering projects. Renault did not respond to a request for comment on Le Borgne's meetings. Renault-Nissan's cost-saving alliance is vital to both companies as the car industry battles a slowdown and huge investments in cleaner vehicles and automated driving. "The alliance has taken a hit, but the alliance engineering team is still there," said a third source, who is close to the alliance. "You cannot, from one day to the next, stop something that's been embedded so deeply." Japanese prosecutors arrested Ghosn — who was at the time the head of the carmakers' alliance -- in November 2018 and accused him of financial misconduct. Ghosn slipped out of Japan and fled at the end of December to Lebanon. He says the charges were fabricated to force him out of an alliance in which the Japanese side no longer trusted its French partners. Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard has said both sides are determined to make the partnership succeed, with the joint projects a major focus. Those projects will be on the agenda when the board of the alliance, which also includes Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi <7211.T>, holds a regular meeting in Japan on Jan. 30. One area of focus will be hybrid power systems, a field where, analysts say, the alliance has not effectively pooled its research and development efforts. Each of the three members of the alliance has developed their own systems. "That's been among the sources of the friction," said the third source close to the alliance.

Thanks to a year of free charges, Nissan Leaf sees sales increase in Texas

Nissan is pretty certain that free charging offers in the two largest metropolitan areas in Texas are substantially boosting sales of the Leaf electric vehicle. Heck, one Houston car dealer says Leaf sales have tripled because of the plan, which is run by NRG through its batch of eVgo Freedom Stations. Each of these stations has a fast-charging outlet and a standard Level 2 cord where EV drivers can plug-in without breaking out the wallet. Here's how the plan works: NRG is offering a year of free charging for those who buy or lease a Leaf in either the Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth areas. NRG has 17 stations in Houston and another 23 in DFW. Nissan pays NRG a fee for employing the program, and it's apparently paying off, Nissan's Brendan Jones told Plug In Cars. The stations are located at retailers such as Walgreens and at gas-station chains. The "No Charge to Charge" program started October 1 and runs through the end of this month. The promotion may be driving sales, but let's remember that Nissan was touting a rise in Leaf sales numbers before the free charging deal went into effect. Of course, the fun does eventually end, and folks have to start paying for the juice after that first year. Two options NRG offers are a 12-month unlimited charging plan for $39.95 a month or a year of unlimited one-hour sessions at a Level 2 a cool $59.95. Californians, there's sadly no word on Nissan or NRG bringing a similar program to the Golden State. Because we know you were wondering that.

Japan prosecutors seek 2 years in prison for ex-Nissan exec Greg Kelly

TOKYO — Japanese prosecutors demanded two years in prison for former Nissan executive Greg Kelly and accused him of joining a “conspiracy” to pay his former boss Carlos Ghosn illicitly in closing arguments Wednesday in a yearlong trial. “That unpaid compensation existed is clear,” prosecutor Yukio Kawasaki told the Tokyo District Court, reading briskly from a thick document. Kelly, a 30-year veteran at the Japanese automaker, was living in the U.S. when he was arrested in November 2018 upon returning to Japan to attend a meeting. The first American to be appointed to NissanÂ’s board, Kelly says he is innocent. He sat calmly in the courtroom, wearing his usual red tie and dark suit, alongside defense lawyers. Everyone in the courthouse was wearing a mask because of the pandemic. Kelly told The Associated Press in an interview last month he did not know all the details of GhosnÂ’s pay. He was determined to retain Ghosn, Nissan's former chairman, because of his extraordinary management skills and wanted to pay him in a legal way, he said. Ghosn was arrested at the same time as Kelly and also maintains he is innocent. He skipped bail in late 2019 and fled to Lebanon, the country of his ancestry. It has no extradition treaty with Japan. The charges center around a pay cut of about 1 billion yen ($10 million) a year that Ghosn voluntarily started taking from 2010, halving his pay after disclosure of high executive pay became mandatory in Japan. Nissan Motor officials considered various ways to make up for the money Ghosn gave up, such as paying him consulting fees after retirement. They also mulled other methods such as payments through subsidiaries and stock options. Nothing had been paid at the time of the arrests. The contention is over whether that money should have been reported as compensation as a de facto promised sum under a binding contract, or didnÂ’t need to be disclosed until it was finalized. Ghosn has said a group at Nissan engineered his arrest because they feared that French automaker Renault, which owns 43% of Nissan, would gain more control over the company. Other Nissan officials made similar comments during KellyÂ’s trial. Renault sent Ghosn to Nissan in 1999 to lead its rescue from the brink of bankruptcy. He successfully steered the maker of the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models for nearly two decades.