Carlos Ghosn calls Nissan a "boring and mediocre car company" in interview

Ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn has hit out at his former employer calling it "boring and mediocre" in an interview promoting his new book.

Speaking to Fox News, the prior Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance CEO said he was disappointed in the direction Nissan has gone in since his forced departure in 2018, something which he believes was due to friction between the Japanese and French governments.

The 67-year-old fugitive is currently residing in his native Lebanon after escaping from Japan in 2019. Prior to that date he was held under house arrest and charged for significant acts of misconduct due to allegedly understating his income to Japanese financial authorities to the tune of $110 million over a five-year period, as well as using Nissan's company assets for personal use.

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"Nissan came back to what it was in 1999, unfortunately, after 19 years of work, as a boring and mediocre car company – which is going to be struggling to try to find its place in the car industry," said Ghosn.

"We were building a system where this company would be a part of something completely new with a lot of technical innovation.

"The Japanese Government, and some Japanese executives, thought that this balance existing between the French and the Japanese in this alliance would not be respected. The French Government was acting in a way to have a much bigger share in [its] say of this alliance.

"This is the kind of plot organised by people where at the end of the day you discover there is no winner. Japan lost its reputation. The French lost. Nissan lost, Renault lost, Mitsubishi lost, the shareholders lost."

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Ghosn's escape from Japan in 2019 was aided by Michael and Peter Taylor, an American father/son duo who transported Ghosn to Lebanon in a flight case. Both men were jailed earlier this year for 24 and 20 months respectively.

Greg Kelly, another former Nissan executive arrested at the same time as Ghosn, is currently on trial in Japan for allegedly falsifying security reports on Ghosn's compensation.

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First published in French and now translated to English, Ghosn is promoting his book 'Broken Alliances: Inside the Rise and Fall of a Global Automotive Empire', detailing the Brazilian-born businessman's rise through the industry to become the head of the world's largest automotive alliance.