The European community is going through a period of market turmoil, but is unlikely to plunge into a double dip recession, Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Nissan Motor and Renault, has said.
Ghosn said the European turmoil driven by the crisis in Greece was “outplayed” and unlikely to have a lasting impact on global markets, according to Reuters.
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“I don’t buy the fact that we are going to go into a double-dip situation,” he said at the Detroit Economic Club. “I just don’t buy that.”
Renault has forecast a 10% decline in the European auto market in 2010 from 2009 and “we don’t think it is going to get worse than this,” Ghosn told the news agency afterward.
“So far, I don’t believe that we are going to be facing a situation that is out of control,” Ghosn said of Europe.
In the United States, Ghosn expects 2010 auto industry sales of about 12m, roughly in the middle of forecasts, with a gradual recovery beyond that.
“I don’t think 12m is a very optimistic scenario,” Ghosn told Reuters. “Today, there are more cars being taken out every year than cars being sold. I think in a certain way we’re moving up to 14m naturally and gradually in a relatively short term.”
Ghosn said automakers would have to focus on the emerging markets to drive growth. To be competitive in those markets, which include China, India and Russia, they can move much more quickly with partnerships, he said.
Nissan was breaking ground on a battery production facility in Tennessee on Wednesday. Production of the Leaf – which Ghosn said had sold out its first year of production – would be somewhat capacity constrained until assembly plants and battery plants outside Japan come on line.
He had no plans to bring back the Renault brand to the United States “in the foreseeable future,” Ghosn said.
