Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
The Human Cost Of The Failed Renault Nissan Alliance Continues To Rise
It’s well-trodden territory, but in case you’ve missed it here’s a rough rehash of what happened to former Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi CEO Carlos Ghosn:
As a Michelin Exec, Ghosn gets a job offer to join Renault and helps bring the company to profitability. Ghosn gets put in charge of Nissan as part of new Nissan-Renault alliance. Ghosn does well, Nissan becomes profitable, and someone makes a manga about how great he is. Ghosn becomes Chairman/CEO of Renault and CEO of Nissan at the same time. He tries to balance Renault’s goal of taking over Nissan and Nissan’s goal of not being taken over by Renault. Allegedly feeling underpaid and undervalued, Ghosn (and other Nissan execs) work to get him paid through various questionable measures. An increasingly worried Nissan “discovers” the payment schemes (that Ghosn claims they were aware of) and starts an investigation. Ghosn is arrested and jailed in Japan’s notoriously terrible prison system and gets fired. Ghosn gets released on a pretty lax house arrest and flees the country to Lebanon in a private jet during an operation organized by an American ex-Green Beret, his son, and an old associate.
Because Lebanon does not extradite its citizens, Ghosn has been living in a mansion in Beirut (that was essentially purchased by Nissan). The two guys who helped him escape? They weren’t so lucky, and were extradited from the United States to Japan and had to serve time in prison. I bring all this up because there’s a good feature in Bloomberg that’s worth reading: “Ghosn’s Daring Escape Cost His Extraction Crew Their Freedom.” Former Green Beret Michael Taylor organized the affair with the help of his son Peter and another guy. Both Taylors spent real time in jail, with the father sentenced to two years and the son sentenced to 20 months. Both were released early and are now back in the United States. The big question is: What’s Ghosn going to do? The Taylors insist that Ghosn owes them money for their legal fees and for their escape. Ghosn response to that, saying:
Skoda Might Pull Out Of China Because China Doesn’t Appreciate Great Cars, I Guess
Is Elon Musk’s Twitter Move A Liability To Tesla, Part Duex
It was just last week that I shared a report claiming Elon Musk was considering using Tesla stock as collateral for better loans to cover his Twitter purchase. The value of new loans are, of course, contingent of the value of Tesla stock, which is, to some extent, tied to how people perceive Elon Musk. Tesla’s stock, as of the previous close, was down approximately $221 for the year, or 55%. Since purchasing Twitter, Tesla’s stock has dropped from $228 to $179. It’s been a tough year for tech stocks, with Apple down about 19% over the last year, so it’s not fair to say that Tesla’s stock has tumbled exclusively because of Twitter. Reporting on Elon Musk is exhausting and people love to write about Elon Musk because it does numbers and I don’t want to get sucked into that game. A question we ask around here a lot is: Would we cover it if it weren’t Elon Musk? Often the answer is: No. So we don’t. If Mary Barra had been booed off stage at a Bill Burr gig after tweeting some utterly stupid nonsense would we write about it? Yeah, probably. Without getting into all the details, there’s clear evidence that Musk was loudly jeered after being brought on stage by Dave Chapelle at an event in San Francisco. I’m not going to post the video because it’s easy to find and extremely cringe. Just walk way. Just walk away. Elon Musk’s foray as the richest man on earth is already in peril (if you can even use that word to describe being the richest man on earth) as his Tesla stock is the biggest key to his wealth. Recently, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas (via Yahoo! Finance) estimated that Musk’s Twitter adventure could wipe another quarter off Tesla’s value: I guess we’ll see. I really don’t want to talk about Tesla stocks anymore, so let’s move on to some important stuff: Skodas. […] Having spoken to a number of investors, Jonas believes confidence in Musk’s leadership at Tesla has been tested owing to the nonstop drama at Twitter, with both consumers and business partners potentially turning their backs on the EV industry leader amid the controversy. I’ve got some bad news for Chinese Skoda fans — a group of people I assume exist and have just been ignoring me on Weibo for some reason. According to a profile in European automotive news site ‘Automobilewoche,’ Skoda CEO Klaus Zellmer says the Czech VW subsidiary is thinking about leaving the market: Very intense might be an understatement. Skoda currently builds and sells vehicles there through its joint venture with SAIC. Unfortunately, foreign joint ventures haven’t been performing as well lately as domestic Chinese companies are building more competitive vehicles. It’s not all bad news for Skoda fans in China, however, as the company may still sell cars in the country that are produced somewhere else. You know what country would appreciate Skoda? America. We already love kolaches, Pilsner Urquell, Brendan Frazer…
Stellantis Is Shutting Down Its Belvidere Plant
Workers at the manufacturing facility in Belvidere, Illinois have been making vehicles for various Chrysler entities since Lyndon Johnson was president. Everything from Dodge Monacos (Monacoes? Monégasques?) and our beloved Plymouth Neons have rolled out of the facility. More recently, the plant was used to build Jeep Cherokees. No more. Stellantis used Friday to dump the news that it was pulling the plug on the facility, indefinitely. From an Automotive News story we have a vague explanation as to why:
The Flush
The 2023 Subaru WRX Miraculously Only Costs $31,625 The World’s Biggest Shipping Company Wants To Ban Gas-Powered Trucks Apple Delays The ‘Apple Car,’ Admits It Must Have Steering Wheel And Pedals
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage. Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member. Photos: Nissan, Tesla, Skoda, Stellantis I’d integrate RAM back into Dodge, make the Durango a Chrysler to compete with the Escalade, and electrify something other than a mini-van and Wrangler. Maybe a cool Barracuda coupe halo car or something.
- They’re hiring at the moment. 2. I’m British, so that’s one qualification done. 3. Can’t be worse than the last guy. 4. What more could they ask for? May I humbly suggest that when I say remember me, please do so, or at least redirect me to the thread I was on so I don’t have to start over. Additionally I had to go to email to get back in. I love this site so I joined. Please make it easier to love you more. And given that Tesla continues to succeed and grow at a high rate, the shares are a bargain right now. The flush: For me it would be Tesla. Then after getting current projects out the door, the next projects would be a car slotted below the Model 3 that would basically be a Honda Fit with a Tesla powertrain as well as a van – in cargo and passenger forms . And I would also introduce optional Velour interiors across the range. (seriously, it’s worse than slideshows.) Also, it is a very good location strategically, being close to a major railroad, a major highway, and a major airport. Someone should snap it up. Why can’t they just make something else there? They have some awesome cars in Europe not sold here, so maybe they can make some of those here. The Berlingo is awesome.
