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Maruti Scouting For Land In Haryana Only To Shift Gurgaon Plant – BloombergQuint

The country’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki India is seeking a land parcel of around 700 acres in Haryana for shifting its Gurgaon plant, a top company official said. The company considers Haryana as its “mother state” and will scout for another location in the state only, considering the presence of its supplier base. Already, Manesar… Continue reading Maruti Scouting For Land In Haryana Only To Shift Gurgaon Plant – BloombergQuint

Ex-Google engineer says he just finished first cross-country self-driving car trip

Angela Merendino | AFP | Getty Images
Anthony Levandowski, Otto Co-founder and VP of Engineering at Uber.

Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of a now-settled lawsuit between Alphabet self-driving car company Waymo and Uber, claims he has completed a trip across the country in a self-driving car.

Levandowski is launching a new autonomous driving start-up, Pronto.ai, according to The Guardian, and is touting the impressive feat as the company's first success.

“We are not building technology that tells vehicles how to drive. Instead, our team of engineers is building tech that can learn how to drive the way people do,” Levandowski said in a Medium post. “Our new approach has already enabled us to make great progress. We drove a vehicle coast-to-coast without any human intervention.”

Levandowski told the Guardian he didn't touch the steering wheel or pedals — except for periodic rest stops — for the full 3,099 miles. He posted a video that shows a portion of the drive, though it's hard to fact-check the full journey.

It would be quite the milestone for autonomous driving, and a potential comeback for the engineer, who was one of the pioneers of Google's self-driving car efforts (before they were rebranded as Waymo), and later defected to Uber. The companies got into a legal battle over confidential documents that Levandowski allegedly took with him, and he was briefly barred from the autonomous driving industry during the trial. The companies settled the case early this year.

The technology isn't “perfectly autonomous,” Levandowski said. And, he added, “The age of autonomous vehicles crisscrossing the country by themselves is still quite a ways off.”

Pronto is rolling out it first product next year.

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Tesla Model S catches fire in California town: Fire Department

A Tesla caught fire Tuesday in a business parking lot in Los Gatos, according to the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

The silver Tesla Model S caught fire a little after 2 p.m. in the parking lot of Los Gatos Tire and Auto Repair at University Avenue and Industrial Way, fire officials said.

No injuries were reported, and the vehicle was not involved in a collision nor was there work being done on it, fire officials said.

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An employee of the tire shop said the vehicle was brought in on a tow truck, and he noticed a hissing sound coming from it, then within minutes, the vehicle was on fire.

Fire crews responded and extinguished the blaze, but the batteries continued to burn long after the larger flames were put out, fire officials said. Crews remained at the scene to keep the batteries cool and ensure they didn't reignite.

A witness, who did not wish to be named, was walking his dog and said he saw a big plume of white smoke. He did not see how the original fire ignited.

The entire front of the Tesla was charred. The adjacent building was not damaged, fire officials said.

A Tesla spokesperson said in a statement: “We are currently investigating the matter and are in touch with local first responders. We are glad to hear that everyone is safe.”

TSLA

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Tesla sinks after Musk says it’ll reimburse customers for missed tax credits and some Model 3 prices get cut in China (TSLA)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker will reimburse customers if delivery delays cause them to miss out on tax breaks. On Sunday, the electric-car maker said it was lowering the price of certain Model 3 sedans in China by up to 7.6%, according to a report.  It was the third time in the last… Continue reading Tesla sinks after Musk says it’ll reimburse customers for missed tax credits and some Model 3 prices get cut in China (TSLA)

Tesla Supercharger gets taken over by anti-Tesla pickup truck drivers acting aggressively

In what appears to be an act of protest against Tesla, a bunch of pickup truck drivers used their trucks to block access to a Supercharger station and reportedly yelled profanities about Tesla until they were removed from the premises. The incident happened in Hickory, North Carolina last weekend. A Tesla owner and Reddit user… Continue reading Tesla Supercharger gets taken over by anti-Tesla pickup truck drivers acting aggressively

Renault-Nissan email reveals executives considered private Ghosn payment plan in 2010

Marlene Awaad | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Carlos Ghosn, chairman of the alliance between Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., pauses during a Bloomberg Television interview at the Paris Motor Show in Paris, France, on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018.

Senior executives at Renault-Nissan worked on a plan as far back as 2010 to pay Chairman Carlos Ghosn part of his salary without having to publicly disclose the amount, according to an email seen by CNBC.

In the text, Ghosn's alleged accomplice and former Nissan Director Greg Kelly asked Renault's then general secretary, Mouna Sepehri, to weigh up the legal risks of such an action. Sepehri is now executive vice president at Renault and a permanent member of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Board.

The email, dated April 2010, outlines a scenario where Ghosn could receive payment through the Dutch holding firm, RNBV, which was jointly owned by the French and Japanese carmakers. Within the text, Kelly stated that he had warned Ghosn of “some legal risk” to this approach but wanted further legal opinion from other executives, including Sepehri.

Kelly wrote: “I greatly appreciate the work you have done to analyze whether part of the CEO's compensation can be paid without disclosing it publicly.” In a Reuters report Wednesday, that CNBC can confirm, that 2010 plan was never put into action.

Renault was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC, but told Reuters that Kelly had “consulted several people at Renault and Nissan to establish whether it was legally possible that part of the CEO's compensation be paid by RNBV to reflect the time he spent working on alliance synergies.”

Ghosn and Kelly are currently in a Tokyo jail following allegations from Japanese prosecutors that the pair failed to declare around $43 million in deferred compensation between the years of 2010 and 2015.

The exclusive report by Reuters on Wednesday also says bankers at Renault-Nissan developed plans to funnel millions of euros in bonus payments to Ghosn and other senior managers through a Dutch company.

Ghosn, via his Japanese lawyer, has denied any wrongdoing. Kelly also denies any wrongdoing and the pair have had little opportunity to respond to the allegations.

In a statement to CNBC, Nissan said: “We cannot comment regarding the specifics of this investigation and other reports.”