Nice try Jedi, here is an article that conveys what uncle Carlos have to say, dated 26 Nov 2005, quite recent :
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/co ... 43,00.html
Car boss in neutral on hyped-up hybrids
Peter Alford, Tokyo correspondent
November 26, 2005
DESPITE the enormous hype for hybrids, Carlos Ghosn, Big Auto's smartest CEO, says the petrol-electric engine has not yet won the alternative technology race and his companies are not convinced it will.
"It's a serious technology but the jury's still out," said Mr Ghosn, who rescued Nissan from the depths of disaster in 1999, after Renault SA took a controlling stake.
Renault's $US5.4 billion investment in Japan's No2 car maker is now worth $US21 billion ($28.4 billion) and now Mr Ghosn is chief executive of both companies.
They operate in an alliance but he insists will never merge while he's in the driving seat "because they are completely different companies, with completely different cultures, embedded in completely different continents".
One of the benefits of the alliance was that the companies could co-operatively explore all the alternative engine technologies, Mr Ghosn told journalists in Tokyo.
"Our view is simple. Until it is definitively established which technology is the final answer to the environmental question, we need to systematically pursue all solutions - diesel, ethanol, hydrogen, electric and hybrid."
While Toyota, the world's No 2 car maker, has gone after the hybrid market with all guns blazing, Nissan has been much more cautious. It will only start shipping a hybrid version of its big-selling Altima sedan to the US - the only sizeable market yet for "green" vehicles - in the second half of next year.
In spite of this year's huge fuel price leaps, doubts have started to emerge about hybrids' cost and usefulness outside urban environments. But Mr Ghosn said all auto companies were under pressure to commit to the technology - especially from the news media.
"There's such a buzz today that no CEO of a car manufacturer dares to say his real opinion of hybrid because he's accused of being retarded, or conservative or not believing in technology, so he's thinking: 'okay, let it ride'.
"But until the consumer decides what he wants we are cautious, because we have seen in the past situations where the media had created a buzz about technology but the customer has not taken to it."
No car manufacturer could afford to ignore technologies that offered fuel efficiency and environmental benefits, but Mr Ghosn said it was possible motorists in different cultures would choose different solutions. Diesel vehicles, which give low carbon dioxide output (and therefore less global warming effect) but are poor on exhaust emissions, have 50 per cent of the total market in Europe but "zero" in the US.
Mr Ghosn expected diesel motors would make inroads into the American market in large pick-ups and sports utility vehicles, sectors that have been badly knocked about by high oil prices.
Despite his careful view of hybrids, Mr Ghosn was upbeat about pure electric technology which, up to now, has been the great disappointment of alternative engine development.
Major advances were afoot in battery technology, reducing the bulk of power units and potentially increasing their range significantly. "I would not discard electricity - I think we will see electric cars in the future."
