In early October, Nissan Motor managers dialed in for a regular online meeting with boss Makoto Uchida only to hear a grim message: business was worse than expected and the Japanese carmaker had to cut jobs and production.
They listened as the 58-year-old chief executive described a deteriorating financial situation that he put down largely to weak sales and profitability in North America and China, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
In the Q&A, some of the few hundred managers peppered Uchida with questions about responsibility for the decline of a company that five years ago had the world's top EV model by lifetime sales. Why didn't Nissan offer gasoline-electric hybrids in the U.S., where customers were now clamoring to buy them? Why hadn't the company hedged its bet on EVs by making hybrids available in the U.S., its biggest market, as it had done for years in Japan? Who was responsible for the latest crisis?
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