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On May 9, Karsan announced that it showcased its strength by presenting electric, autonomous, and hydrogen technologies at the Next Mobility Expo held in Milan, Italy. The company showcased its 12-meter e-ATA HYDROGEN, electric e-JEST, and the world's first Level 4 autonomous bus, Autonomous e-ATAK at the expo.
Additionally, the company also signed a dealership agreement with KMobility SRL, to expand its electric vehicle ecosystem in Italy.
On May 9, 2024, Nissan Motor announced its FY2023 financial results and FY2024 business highlights.
The automaker announced its consolidated sales revenues for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 (April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024) increased by 19.7% year-on-year to JPY 12,685.7 billion. Operating income increased by 50.8% year-on-year (YoY) to JPY 568.7 billion, while net profit increased 92.3% to JPY 426.6 billion. Operating profit growth is contributed by it’s sales performance driven by strong volume and product mix and foreign exchange.
In fiscal year 2023, total global retail sales increased by 4.1% YoY to 3,442 thousand units. In Japan, unit sales rose by 6.5% to 484 thousand units, in North America by 23.3% to 1,262 thousand units and in Europe by 17.2% to 361 thousand units. On the other hand, in China, retail sales fell by 24.1% to 794 thousand units.
As for the financial forecasts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025 (April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2025), Nissan forecasts that net revenue is expected to increase by JPN 914.3 billion to JPN 13.6 trillion, operating profit to increase by JPY 31.3 billion to JPY 600 billion, net income is projected to decline to JPN 380 billion. Although inflation costs will be a negative factor, volume increase, forex benefit and raw material costs are expected to contribute to higher operating profit.
Nissan recapped the progress achieved during the Nissan NEXT transformation plan, which
concluded at the end of fiscal 2023. It focused on three areas:
On May 8, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that the Biden administration could take an "extreme action" and ban Chinese connected vehicles or opt to impose restrictions, but is first reviewing extensive public comments that were due April 30.
The Biden administration launched a probe in February into whether Chinese vehicle imports pose national security risks because vehicles "collect large amounts of sensitive data on their drivers and passengers (and) regularly use their cameras and sensors to record detailed information on U.S. infrastructure".
"We have to digest all the data and then figure out what action that we want to take," Raimondo said without detailing a timeline. "We could take extreme action, which is to say no Chinese connected vehicles in the United States or look for mitigation" including safeguards, guardrails or other requirements.
Also on May 8, Senate Banking Committee Sherrod Brown said that he had urged Commerce in a filing "to ban all Chinese internet-connected vehicles and smart vehicle technology that is designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied from China."
Raimondo said at a recent U.S. House of Representatives hearing she was concerned about Chinese connected vehicles that "could be collecting massive amounts of data on Americans, who they are, what they say in their car, where they go to, their patterns of driving."
In November, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers raised alarms about Chinese companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the U.S.
(multiple sources on May 8, 2024)