Carlos Ghosn has denied any responsibility for Renault’s alleged emission cheating scandal.
The French automaker, along with others such as Volkswagen and Peugeot, has been under fire after being accused of falsifying data from emission tests, which it denies.
During his recent interrogation by French investigators in Beirut, Ghosn, who headed the company between 2005 and 2019, rejected responsibility for the cheating system allegedly used by Renault in diesel vehicles.
He claimed that at his level of management, he was not involved in issues related to engine performance.
He also pointed out that between 2016 and 2018, he was also heading Mitsubishi in addition to Renault and Nissan, “meaning three companies spanning two continents, you can well imagine that I did not know the engines in detail.”
After being presented with technical questions, Ghosn referred the French judges to his former subordinates, including Carlos Tavares, his former deputy who now heads another car alliance.
“I’m not a car person,” Ghosn said, stressing that he was, above all else, “a manufacturer.”
France’s anti-fraud office had set its eyes on Ghosn over this case back in 2016, stating that Renault’s “entire chain of command” was implicated in the case, adding that the alleged emission cheating was part of “company strategy.”
On a related note, Ghosn‘s successor at Nissan, CEO Makota Uchida, recently argued that the fugitive businessman had too much power during his time with the Japanese company.
