Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has been arrested, after the automaker found years of financial reporting improprieties following a whistleblower report. Ghosn is accused of underplaying his compensation in Tokyo Stock Exchange securities reports, in addition to using company assets for personal use.
Renault is working hard to bring the future of autonomous vehicles to market with an experience that caters to just about every demographic. Renault showed off its EZ-Go autonomous vehicle for getting the masses wherever they need to be. For those not wanting a basic mobility experience, Renault is showing off its vision for a premium autonomous mobility service.
Renault showed off its EZ-Go concept for shared mobility in March and the concept was a cool glimpse into the future. Renault is now back with a similar concept called EZ-Pro that aims at being a robotic vehicle concierge for last mile delivery. EZ-Pro had its world premiere this week at the Hannover Motor Show.
Google's Android will power the new infotainment systems of Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi cars, with the huge automaker alliance announcing the huge deal today. The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is the world's largest automotive group, collectively responsible for 10.6 million vehicle sales last year.
Renault has unveiled a new concept vehicle at the Geneva Motor Show called the EZ-Go. The vehicle is a future vision of shared urban mobility. Renault says that the vehicle is built for the city and meant to be integrated with it.
Renault has announced that it has opened a new Alpine A110 production line in Dieppe, France. The Location is the original home of the Alpine brand and the production line there is dedicated to the new Alpine sports car. The new line if the cumulation of two-years of work.
Renault has announced that it has some cool limited-edition Zoe EVs that it will be launching next spring. The limited-edition cars are Zoe Star Wars editions and pre-orders are going right now. The car has special Star Wars stickers on the outside that features the Millennium Falcon on the hood, roof, and trunk.
Renault is showing off a fancy autonomous car control system that promises to be able to handle challenging driving situations better than existing systems. Renault says that its autonomous system can avoid road obstacles as well as a professional test driver. The automaker calls this an industry first.
It's always cool to see what designers think will be the vehicles of the future. Renault recently held a contest to design the car of the future at DesignJunction 2017. This year the emphasis for the car's design was on electric power, autonomous driving, and connected technologies. The participants in the contest were MA Industrial Design students and were judged by Anthony Lo and Nick Rhodes from the Renault senior design team.
People who drive a lot for work tend to feel like they live in their cars, but Renault has a new concept called SYMBIOZ that is an integrated house and car designed to work together in harmony. The concept is a vision of an autonomous car and connected home that sees the car in use in different places within and around the home.
Some car makers are already announcing the death of diesel engines and their replacement by electric ones. As ideal as that might be from an economy and environment perspective, it's still an untenable future, mostly because of problems with the ubiquity and spread of charging stations. If all goes well with this new development, however, that may no longer be a problem at all. Renault, Qualcomm, and Vedecom have successfully demonstrated a Kangaroo Z.E. that was able to charge wirelessly up to 20 kw, even while traveling at speeds of or more than 100 kilometers per hour.
Like many car companies, Nissan's focus at CES 2017 this year is autonomous driving technology. Nissan Chariman and CEO Carlos Ghosn took the stage at the trade show this evening to announce a new driverless system called Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM). SAM will be one component of Nissan's Intelligent Mobility system, but it will likely be the most noteworthy one as well.