AD #2481 – Ghosn’s Arrest Is Highly Suspicious, Logano Wins 1st NASCAR Title, Wrangler “Death Wobble” Investigated

On today’s show…in a stunning development, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was arrested for under reporting his income…Joey Logano wins his first NASCAR Cup Series championship…and why you shouldn’t drive your new Jeep Wrangler over 65 miles-per-hour. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the voice of the automotive industry.

GHOSN IS GOIN’
Reports out of Japan this morning say that Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan, was arrested for under-reporting his income to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Nissan will fire Ghosn and its only American board member, Greg Kelly. It also accused them both of using company assets. Ghosn will keep his position as the CEO of Renault and Mitsubishi, at least for now. And John will have more to say about this later in the show.

NHTSA INVESTIGATES JEEP WRANGLER “DEATH WOBBLE”
The Jeep Wrangler is able to tackle some of the most extreme off-road obstacles, but apparently, it’s having difficulty with the smallest of bumps on the road. A number of owners of the new Jeep Wrangler JL, complain that the vehicle starts to shake, sometime violently, after hitting a small bump at highway speeds. And it doesn’t go away until the vehicle is slowed to around 50 miles-per-hour. They’re calling it the “death wobble.” But a spokesman for FCA says it’s not a safety issue and can happen to any vehicle with a solid front axle. There have been past reports of the issue cropping up on older Ford pickups and Jeeps and it seems to be more common with modified vehicles. But NHTSA has been looking into recent complaints about the issue. We think it might be wise not to drive it over 65 miles-per-hour.

LOGANO WINS FIRST NASCAR CHAMPIONSHIP
In racing news over the weekend, Joey Logano won the NASCAR race in Homestead-Miami and in doing so, won his first NASCAR Cup Series Championship. He passed Martin Truex with 11 laps left to take the top spot in his Ford. The four championship qualifiers, Logano, Truex, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch, finished the race in the top four spots, in that order. So congratulations to Logano for his first championship and congratulations to Ford, which hasn’t won a title since 2004.

Still to come, BorgWarner comes up with a slick powertrain for electric cars.

MYSTERY CAR ON INSTAGRAM REVEALED
Whoops, we told you we would do this last Friday, but we want to announce what was that mystery car we showed on Instagram last week. @laughinglion13 was the first to correctly identify it as the new Kia Rio. But there were a total of 12 people that got it right and a few were eagle-eyed enough to note that it was the 5-door hatchback version. And a big thanks to everyone that had a little fun trying something different with us.

PEUGEOT OFFERS EXTENDED 508 IN CHINA
Peugeot just introduced a long wheelbase version of its 508 sedan in China. The car will be built in the country along with its joint venture partner, Dongfeng, specifically for the Chinese market. In addition to the longer wheelbase, the 508L features more headroom and connected car technology from Chinese tech giant Huawei. The Dongfeng Peugeot 508L will be available in the first quarter of next year.

BORGWARNER CREATES INTEGRATED EV POWERTRAIN
Automotive suppliers are jumping into the EV segment with both feet. It’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing so many EV startups. They can buy EV powertrains from suppliers. And BorgWarner has come up with a slick unit it calls the Integrated Drive Module. It integrates the electric motor, with the power electronics and the transmission into one module. In fact, the power electronics are in a housing that actually doubles as a stressed member of the module. By integrating the power electronics and electric motor, this eliminates a set of cooling hoses, and greatly reduces the number of high-voltage, orange cables. By combining the transmission into the module, BorgWarner has come up with an EV power unit that is stiffer and lighter than those that simply take separate units and bolt them together.   

Coming up next, John has something to say about why Carlos Ghosn is going to be fired from Nissan.

GHOSN’S ARREST IS HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS
The reports coming out of Japan that Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan, was arrested and fired for under-reporting his income to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, are highly suspicious. After all, every year Nissan has to publish what it pays its executives. So his compensation is public knowledge. And even if he did under-report, this sort of thing is generally handled with a fine and a scolding. So what is really going on?

Nissan is deeply resentful that is has to hand over billions of profits to Renault every year. That’s because Renault owns 43% of Nissan, while Nissan only owns 15% of Renault and those shares have no voting power. So Renault runs the show, even though Nissan is bigger and far more profitable.

The French government also owns 15% of Renault and it likes the way things are. It’s been tone deaf to Nissan’s pleas to give it more say in the grand Alliance between Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi. So now the Japanese have everyone’s attention. Renault also has two French executives on the Nissan board. They better behave like Boy Scouts because the Japanese are going to find every excuse to get rid of them. One thing’s for sure, this boardroom battle is far from over.   

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.