Name: This Auto Industry CEO Is Betting Big on Electric and Autonomous Cars
Uploaded: 2018-01-19
Duration: 5 min 41 s
Description: Chairman and CEO of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance Carlos Ghosn wants to lead the charge on cars of the future.

Carlos, you just announced that you've created a $ 1 billion fund that's gonna invest in startups in the auto technology sector. Why did you see a need to do this? Well, because we cannot do everything. And we don't see everything happening. So I think it was very important to show internally and externally that we're. Also looking for ideas, projects, technology coming from outside. So how do these start- ups help you jumpstart your efforts whether you're dealing with electric vehicles or coming out with the best self- driving vehicle, how do they help you? They bring ideas, services, pieces of technologies Thinks that it would take too much time for us to do, too much money for us to do, or that represent an other alternative that you want to test. You're also have announced that you're launching 12 electric vehicle models by the year 2022, now that's only five years away and everyone from GM to Tesla has pretty much the same goals. What leg- up do you have or what is your competitive advantage? Well firt our compettitive advantage is we are the biggest producer and seller of electric cars today already. We occupy the ground, the LEAF is the most sold car in the world, electric car in the world. We occupy a lot of leadership mosition already. We want to continue to build on this leadership and we think that by developing twelve cars we announced In different segments of the market we're gonna be able to continue to be leading the industry, obviously with a lot of efforts. But you know when people think electric vehicle, they think Tesla. And I know you've been commited to electric vehicles for decades, but what do you have to do to change the popular common perception that Nissan is an electric vehicle company. Well as long as they think Tesla and they by Nissan I'm okay. You know I don't consider Tesla as a competitor I consider Tesla as an ally to popularize making more popular to buy electric car. We are concentrated on the heart of the market and also on the affordable electric car and we're going to continue Particularly developing cars in these segments, which is a complement to what Tesla does. Well there's this other perception, that the next wave of real innovation in the auto industry is not gonna come from a car company. It's gonna come from a Google, or an Apple, or some other silicon valley company. Yes. What are your thoughts on that? Usually innovation comes from outside the industry when the industry is blind. When the industry refuses to see. The Davitas. Today it is not the case. The car industry is extremely attentive to all the technology collaboration. The other challenge that we always hear about that, you, know, consumers are not really asking for an electric vehicle. That's true. They are very happy with their gas powered cars and trucks. What do you think it's gonna take to get, you know, people eager to have an electric vehicle? Look, consumers usually they don't care about is it a diesel, is it a combustion engine, is it a hybrid, is it the plug in hybrid, or is it electric car. I'm saying most of the consumers, 90 % of the people, dont't care. What they care about is, what's the price of the car? What the resale value of the car, what the total cost of ownership? Is it reliable, and am I going to be serviced? Let's talk a little bit about self- driving cars. Those autonomous vehicles. What's your prediction on when we will have a completely driverless vehicle? In prototypes, you have them already. There are plenty of prototypes. Self- driving. In mass marketing big quantity of driverless cars. I am predicting it in four to five years from now. Just four to five years, that soon? Completely driverless? Completely driverless. Accepted in communities, accepted in cities. You know as much as we talk about these driverless cars consumers, most people are very fearful of them. They're worried about computer glitches. They're worried about horrible accidents. Robots taking control. I'm sure people ask you about this all the time. What do you say? I'll bet you that nobody's gonna make in mass marketing driverless cars without making sure 100 % that they are reliable. So forget about glitches, forget about robos turning weird I don't think this is gonna happen because this is a big liability for a car maker, so we're gonna make sure that there's enough control, that there is enough robustness into the technology to avoid this kind of thing. I know you're [ UNKNOWN ] Just at the consumer electronics show and there were all these cool techy ideas that will be coming to the car industry. Everything from cars that park themselves to biometrics that you use instead your key. Lot of futuristic stuff. If you look ahead, let's say five years, what does the auto industry, what are the cars on the road gonna look like. What we're gonna see five years down the road is the cars are gonna become a mobile space, totally connected, where you're gonna be able to do a lot of things. It's a huge transformation. It's like the change from The telephone, where you are able only to communicate with people to the smartphone, where not only you communicate with people, you have video games, you have movies, you have your email, you're gonna be able to have all the application. That's the transformation that we're gonna have with the car. And just about every business leader is talking about Artificial intelligence is so important. How critical is AI gonna be in the transformation of the car industry that you're talking about? Well, it's essential. AI is essential in the transformation because in fact, it's the source of a lot of the functionalities that we're gonna to be introducing into the car and they're gonna be extremely helpful for the consumer. And transformation of transportation device to smart intelligent mobile space. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

This Auto Industry CEO Is Betting Big on Electric and Autonomous Cars

Leadership

Chairman and CEO of the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance Carlos Ghosn wants to lead the charge on cars of the future.