"Nissan Leaf" by exoduz, under a Creative Commons license on flickr.com.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. -- The future of the global auto industry may have finally arrived. Let's hope so, as film shots of melting glaciers keep re-playing in our heads. Japanese automaker Nissan recently launched the Leaf, its jazzy new all-electric car, at baseball's Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the first city in a 22-city tour of the U.S.A. and Canada. The new car is a part of Nissan's herculean goal to make affordable, all-electric vehicles for the global mass market.
Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and the alliance, said the Leaf will cost about the same as similar-sized Nissan cars, with consumers paying 1% to 2% more to lease the Leaf's lithium-ion battery. The new car, which may go on sale in late 2010, has a driving range of 100 miles and must be rejuiced at charging stations or at the owners' garage at home. So far, Nissan has signed early deals worldwide with 33 local governments and energy firms to build electric-vehicle infrastructures for recharging. The most recent deal was announced Friday with NRG Energy's Reliant Energy in Houston, the heart of the U.S. oil and energy industry. Meanwhile, the Renault-Nissan Alliance, a 10-year-old partnership of the French and Japanese automakers, has launched "zero-emission vehicle initiatives" in Japan, Europe, Mexico, China and Israel.
No wallflower, Ghosn boldly predicts that electric cars will make up 10% of global sales by 2020. He believes that U.S. consumers will buying enough electric vehicles to surpass President Obama's goal of 1 million plug-in vehicles by 2015. Nissan isn't alone in the market for climate-friendly vehicles, facing competition from Toyota and Honda hybrids, General Motor's Chevrolet Volt and several electric carmakers in China.
Don't bet against Ghosn, though. Critics scoffed when he took over the Renault-Nissan Alliance. But the cross-cultural Ghosn -- a Lebanese native who grew up in Brazil and France and who speaks five languages -- got the cross-border companies to work together and turn around then-ailing Nissan. Now, as the global auto market grows in emerging markets, the Alliance works closely with Dongfeng Motor Co. in China, Bajaj Auto in India and Russia's largest automaker, AvtoVAZ. Ghosn said that auto executives and government leaders in those countries favored the Alliance over other foreign automakers because of the long-lasting ties between Renault and Nissan. "They said we were not a merger or acquisition," Ghosn said, "but a real partnership between two companies."
The night before the Leaf debuted in the U.S.A., Ghosn spoke with CoolGlobalBiz.com in his hotel suite in Beverly Hills. The globe-trotting CEO and business diplomat had just flown in from Shanghai and New Delhi, where he attended the World Economic Forum with other corporate leaders. Brief excerpts from our interview (more later):
On the strengths and dangers of cultural diversity: "If it is not managed, it can be a weakness. I've seen many examples where wars and fights are started because people of different values and cultures are not able to manage their diversity. On the contrary, when it's managed, it can be a strength. A country like Brazil, where you have so many people of different origins coming togtether, little by little has built itself into a powerhouse."
On business diversity: "When you're addressing a market, and this market is made up of people with a certain diversity, it's important that your company reflects this diversity. If you want to understand what products and services people want, you need people in the company who understand the market and can make those decisions. A company like Nissan or Renault sells products in all markets of the world, and the people buying the products are men and women, young and old, different religions, different values."
On the Alliance and the Leaf: "There are so many ways to look at the benefits of the Alliance. You can do projects that, if you were not together, you could not do. I don't think Renault alone or Nissan alone could have developed the battery and the electric car. But working together, with the scale they have, they were capable of developing both."
On cross-border partnerships: "When you are mixing people from different backgrounds and different companies, you're doing it in a way which is passionate, (while also) respecting the identity of the companies. You have to do it steadily, patiently. You need the right speed, you have to accelerate or decelerate . . . The most important thing is that you are lasting. You know very well that (most) acquisitions end up collapsing, most mergers end up being dissolved. We are the only partnership in our industry that has lasted more than 10 years, and we are still growing and developing."
Nissan's all-electric Leaf at its U.S.A. debut in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium.
- Edmunds.com's Green Car Advisor, "NIssan's Ghosn Betting Reputation and Corporate Fortunes on Electric Vehicles" by John O'Dell.
- BNET.com, "Nissan Introduces the LEAF EV in Los Angeles" by Jim Motavalli.
- Gas2.org, "Nissan CEO Says their Electric Car Strategy is Unique in Industry" by Nick Chambers.
- Knowledge at Wharton, "Renault-Nissan CEO: 'Now is the time for the electric car.
- HuffingtonPost.com, "Nissan Leaf EV Launched in US" by Steve Parker.
