Advertisement

Apple and Google cars aren't a threat: Ghosn

Renault's top executive has written a letter to Nissan urging a shareholder meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing the arrest of Carlos Ghosn in Tokyo last month as a "significant risk" to the car makers' partnership.

As technology giants Apple (AAPL) and Google edge towards the fast lane of carmaking, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault (RNO-FR)-Nissan (7201.T-JP), insisted that traditional automakers did not feel threatened.

Google (GOOGL) has already set the industry abuzz with its electric, self-driving cars, and the market is filled with rumors of Apple following suit.

But speaking to CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Ghosn said the auto business was not attractive to tech giants on the hunt for high profit margins.

"Unfortunately, it is not an extremely profitable industry," he said.

"It's an industry that requires a lot of investment and unfortunately it doesn't have so much high return. I would say the classical car industry is an area not very attractive for people in the high-tech who are making very interesting margins."

ADVERTISEMENT

Read More Car owners fed up with these failing technologies

Ghosn said he did not expect a Google - or even an Apple – vehicle to come to market any time soon.

Instead, he said Google's move into the area was more to do with it getting in on the "technological evolution" of the car industry.

Tech companies like Microsoft and Intel are interested in cars, "because they see it as a very important object, where quite a lot of technology can be put in," he added.