Volkswagen Has Been Kicked Out of No. 1 Auto Sales Spot

Results are in for the first six months of worldwide car sales, and Volkswagen has been, as CNNMoney notes, "dethroned." The German carmaker came in with about 5,155,600 vehicles sold in the first half of the year, followed by Toyota at 5,129,000. But it was the Renault-Nissan Alliance, a conglomerate of French and Japanese automakers that recently added Mitsubishi to the mix, that came out on top, selling 5,268,000 or so, it announced Friday. Mitsubishi alone accounted for about 500,000 of those units.

CNN notes Volkswagen—which earned the year-end title last year for the first time, snatching it away from four-years-in-a-row Toyota—could still take the lead again by year's end. A Nissan corporate VP shrugged the news off, noting sales volume means nothing without profits, per USA Today. "Personally, whether we are No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3 doesn't interest me," he notes. "And it is not a goal for our company." (More Nissan-Renault stories.)