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This is Carlos Ghosn's first full week as president and chief executive officer of Nissan, the No. 2 auto maker in Japan, and Renault, the No. 2 auto maker in France.

Ghosn rescued Nissan from oblivion and now he's being asked to do his magic on his former company, Renault, which owns 44 per cent of Nissan. Renault bought a stake in Nissan in 1999 and now owns 44.3 per cent of the company. Nissan owns 15 per cent of Renault.

Nissan's share price has more than doubled since Ghosn, a 51-year-old native of Brazil, saved Nissan from bankruptcy in 1999.

He has set a lofty goal for the Renault-Nissan alliance, now the world's No. 4 auto maker group by sales, with a combined 5.79 million units sold last year. Under his leadership, the alliance has announced growth goals that would vault it past Ford, now No. 3 in the world. Only No. 1, General Motors and No. 2, Toyota would stay ahead.

Vaughan: Your story at Nissan is an amazing one, but now Renault too? Even Carlos Ghosn can't be on two continents at once.

Ghosn: Well, the Nissan story isn't over.

I will remain as president and CEO of Nissan and at the same time I will take the responsibility of president and CEO of Renault. That's why the story's not finished.

I mean, you're going to have to wait until 2006, 2007 and look at the results of Nissan, look at the results of Renault, and if what you see you like, it means that, yes, it can be done.

You can have one CEO over two companies and feel confident about it because, as long as you have the right people around you from both sides, I think we can do great things.

Vaughan: How much more synergy can you create between Nissan and Renault?

Ghosn: Sure, there can be more synergies but these synergies will take place in the back office, support functions, platforms, commonality of suppliers, but never where it interferes with the customer.

The brands will remain separate, the showrooms will remain separate, the marketing strategies will remain separate, designs will remain separate.

So the strategy will continue to be autonomous. You want to make sure that Renault continues to be Renault, and Nissan continues to be Nissan.

But again, in the back office where it makes sense, systems, common suppliers, common engineering, exchange of designs, exchange of engines, we can do things which make sense for good profits.

Vaughan: Do you worry about a cultural clash between the French and the Japanese in one company? At least so far I haven't seen it.

Ghosn: You have a cultural clash when someone feels he is being ignored, when someone feels his identity is being eliminated or is being erased or isn't being respected.

Everything we've been doing from the beginning is to make sure that each one in Nissan feels proud to be part of Nissan, and each one in Renault feels proud to be part of Renault.

We have never blurred the identity. We have always respected the identity of each company and that's one of my commitments as CEO of both companies.

Vaughan: It seems to me that Renault is probably a bigger challenge than Nissan. Renault's profit margins are half what you get at Nissan. Isn't Renault going to take up too much of your time?

Ghosn: You know, I'm used to this. Before things happen, people say the situation is too difficult. After it's been fixed, they say it was too easy.

So again, I'm used to this question. Now people tell me, you know, Renault is going to be very hard and very difficult. Why are they saying this? Because it's not done yet. When I started at Nissan, they said Nissan is not going to be easy. Why? It's not done.

So I'm used to this. The only thing I want to tell you is that there are a lot of talented people in Renault. This is a company with a great history. I am not afraid, I am not anxious, I am not stressed.

I'm looking forward to it and I think I can bring a lot of things. That means working with the Renault people to continue to make this company a great company without ever forgetting Nissan.

Let me tell you something. In 1999, at Nissan we were behind on everything, on everything! So we're going step by step, step by step. We have to be patient, we have to be tenacious, we have to be focused.

The most rewarding thing is that the cars we're putting on the streets are really exhilarating the pulse of the public. That's what we want. We want to continue to do that.

Vaughan: While we're talking about Nissan, would you admit that some of the Nissan products have not been the hits that you would expect? I'm thinking of the Titan pickup and the Armada SUV.

Ghosn: Well, I think you've picked the two wrong models.

I agree with you that some of the cars have not been at the level of our expectation.

Titan is a hit but the development of Titan is taking a little bit more time, but you have to take a look at the four/five-year sales. Titan is already at the level of 100,000 trucks a year, not even two years after it has been launched.

Armada, as you know, is No. 1 in J.D. Power in its segment, and it's selling very, very well. So I don't think these are good examples.

Now, I agree with you, with your argument on another car, which is the Quest. Our level of sales was not at our expectations and I don't think will be at the level of our expectations. We are reviewing the product and we're going to introduce a lot of modifications, listening to what our customers are saying.

You're going to see a fine-tuned, modified Quest coming back to the market. We don't give up.

Now, let me tell you one thing. You cannot expect every product to be a hit. We have 50 Nissan cars that we sell globally. You can't expect 50 cars to become 50 hits because if you make 50 hits, it's not 10 per cent operating margin that we'll do, it's 20 per cent operating margin.

We are already the top company in terms of operating profitability, which means that the number of cars we have launched are, on average, much more successful than what the rest of the industry is doing -- and we want to continue like this.

It doesn't mean that everything has to be perfect, but it means that you have to recognize when the car is not fulfilling your expectation, recognize it, act on it, come back with something better.

Michael Vaughan Live is on at 6 to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday on Report on Business Television.

Michael Vaughan and Jeremy Cato are co-hosts of Car/Business, which appears Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. on Report on Business Television and Saturdays at 2 p.m. on CTV.

mvaughan@robtv.com