The future according to Nissan's Carlos Ghosn

TOKYO, JAPAN – It takes a mighty big set of balls to take over a global company on the brink of bankruptcy, and an even bigger set to offer up your own resignation if you can’t fix it within your first year. Yet that is exactly what celebrity CEO, Carlos Ghosn, did back in 1999 when he took over Nissan. Sure he ruffled a few kimonos doing so, but after he was done turning the company around and making it one of the most profitable companies in the automotive industry within 3 years, he took on another global company. Simultaneously.

But despite being the only man to actively run two Fortune 500 companies, as well as being Japan’s seventh most popular choice as “celebrities who you would like to run Japan” and perhaps the only CEO to have his own Bento box and comic book character, Carlos Ghosn wants you to remember him as the first man who gave zero emission vehicles to the masses.

“If you’re going to let developing countries have as many cars as they want – and they’re going to have as many cars as they want one way or another – there is absolutely no alternative but to go for zero emissions. And the only zero-emissions vehicle available today is electric... So we decided to go for it,” Ghosn was quoted as saying during the development phase of the Nissan Leaf.

And on that cold November day in Tokyo Big Sight, despite all the glamour and excitement of his Nismo products, GTR Skylines and other highlights like his second back to back world championships as engine supplier in F1, Carlos Ghosn stood proudly next to his Nissan Leaf and was finally able to brag to the global press about being the best selling fully electric car in automotive history, earning him the unofficial title of the modern day Henry Ford.

The idea of bringing in an affordable fully electric vehicle may seem like an obvious solution now, but about a decade ago, with the weight of over 20 billion dollars of debt weighing you down, it took the vision of Ghosn to throw almost all the company’s resources at it like some kind of one-time-big-time bet on the future. And that bet has finally paid off.

With over 20,000 Leafs plying the roads, Ghosn and his team at Nissan can claim to have saved over 3 million liters of fuel and 7,300 tons of CO2, giving Nissan a head start on achieving their goal to reduce carbon by 90% by 2050.