Or one of the newer conglomerates which encompasses several car companies?
Perhaps the US titan, General Motors, has fought back?
The answer: well, it depends on what carmakers include in their global sales numbers. And, crucially, how you define a car.Working out who's top dog in car sales globally really depends on what kind of ranking you want,
according to Anna-Marie Baisden, head of automobiles at BMI Research in London.
Some media reports have put the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance as "the biggest seller of light vehicles" in 2017, and placed VW firmly in second place.
But those accounts stripped out so-called heavy vehicles from VW's numbers.
Heavy vehicles usually mean things like big trucks and buses - which seems reasonable. They are clearly not cars.
But VW includes its heavy vehicles in its global sales numbers. And so others took those figures at face value, and reported the German firm had maintained the number one crown, ahead of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.Well that depends on where you live and what brand you're driving.
"SUVs have become very popular, so many of them are basically the same as normal cars," says Derryn Wong, editor-in-chief of CarBuyer.
"But in the USA some SUVs are counted as light trucks. In Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, the Toyota Hilux is a pickup truck, or light commercial vehicle, while the Toyota Fortuner uses the same platform and looks similar, but is considered an SUV-passenger car.
"Simply put, it's very hard to draw a line where passenger cars end and light vehicles begin," he says.
But the fun doesn't end there.
Vans for example are nearly always counted as commercial vehicles, except if they are a minivan - like the Toyota Sienna, which can carry eight people.
