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Ghosn took bullet train to Osaka en route to Lebanon

Japan Justice Minister Masako Mori speaks during a press conference about Carlos Ghosn's escape from Japan. / Getty TOKYO — Former Nissan and Renault boss Carlos Ghosn began his astonishing escape from Japan with a bullet train ride from Tokyo to Osaka, possibly accompanied by several people, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported Monday. Japanese authorities also said on Monday they may still press for Ghosn's extradition from Lebanon to face multiple charges of financial wrongdoing, even though the country does not normally extradite its nationals. Security cameras captured Ghosn leaving his home on Dec. 29 at about 2:30 p.m. (0530 GMT) and arriving some hours later at Tokyo's Shinagawa Station, where he took the train 300 miles to Shin Osaka Station, Kyodo said, citing a person familiar with the matter. The international fugitive then went by car to a hotel near Osaka's Kansai International Airport, where he boarded a private jet at 11:10 p.m., according to the media report. Ghosn was forbidden from leaving Japan while awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct, which he has denied, but he fled at the end of 2019 to escape what he called a "rigged" justice system. Prosecutors are now working with police to piece together Ghosn's route and find out who helped him, Kyodo said. In the government's first briefing since Ghosn skipped bail, Justice Minister Masako Mori said on Monday that as a general principle, Tokyo could request the extradition of a suspect from a country with which it has no formal extradition agreement. Such a request would need to be carefully examined based on the possibility of "guaranteeing reciprocity and the domestic law of the partner country," Mori told reporters in Tokyo.   Arrest warrant Mori did not say what would guarantee reciprocity (the idea that benefits or penalties extended by one country to citizens of another should be reciprocated). She also did not say if there were any Lebanese nationals in Japan wanted in Lebanon. Mori offered little insight into the events of Ghosn's escape to his ancestral home, repeatedly saying she could not comment on specifics because of an ongoing investigation. Japanese officials broke days of silence about the Ghosn case on Sunday, saying they would tighten immigration measures and investigate his escape thoroughly. The authorities have also issued an international notice for his arrest.

Nissan puts Le Mans prototype program under review

Nissan had a challenging time developing its GT-R LM Nismo, then it faced enormous challenges at Le Mans, the race it designed the car for, and now the race outfit is dealing with challenges in the boardroom. While the outfit gets ready for a test at the Circuit of the Americas, Sportscar365 reports that Nissan executives in Japan are deciding how to proceed with their LMP1 program. The meetings were presaged last month by CEO Carlos Ghosn, who said at last month's Formula E race in London that "we must assess the strategy. We wanted to be different and competitive, we have only been different." Both Ghosn's wording and that of the Sportscar365 piece make it seem that company bosses are wrangling over continuing with "the current specification" of the GT-R LM Nismo, not the entire two-year race program. If that's the case and the decision goes against, we could see a more traditional Nissan racer in La Sarthe next year. While it's easy for us to say this, we think that would be a shame. Le Mans is hard enough to win with a massive budget and a traditional race car - just ask Peugeot and Toyota, and remember that Porsche didn't go home covered in laurels its first year back, either. Given just how different Nissan's car is, a year in the deep weeds at the world's biggest and least forgiving endurance race against veteran competition isn't an outrageous outcome. And remember, persistent issues prevented the team from using the car's hybrid system, robbing the GT-R LM Nismo of half its horsepower and rear-wheel drive. That was never going to go well. Can the engineers get the GT-R LM Nismo to work properly? We don't know. But we'd like to see them get a proper chance to get it right. Related Video:

Zombie cars: 9 discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.