Implementing Renault’s ‘Drive the future’ mid-term plan will be Ghosn’s main focus, with that plan ending in the same year as Ghosn’s extended tenure comes to a close. His job title continues as chairman and chief executive officer of Renault as well as the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance.

The Renault brand had a bumper 2017. Registrations increased by 8.5% over 2016 to 3.76 million vehicles. Across Groupe Renault, revenues reached €58.8 billion (£52bn), with an operating income of €3.8bn (£3.4bn) – up 15.9%, or €523m (£464 million), over 2016. 

Renault was the second-best-selling brand in Europe last year, growing 4% to deliver 1.1 million cars – that's almost 100,000 more than Ford, but 550,000 behind Volkswagen. With 30,000 Zoes sold, however, Renault was the top brand in Europe for electric vehicles last year. 

The proliferation of SUVs continued to help Renault, with the Captur remaining the top-selling B-segment SUV in Europe, with 212,768 registrations in 2017. The Koleos was the sixth-best-selling D-segment SUV in Europe, despite being a new entry, while the Kadjar also performed well. The Clio was the best seller in France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia, and among the best sellers in several other European countries. 

Brexit found its way into Groupe Renault’s financial announcement - the devaluation of the pound, as well as the Argentine peso and US dollar, collectively cost the company around £266 million across 2017. The French government recently announced that it will reduce its stake in Renault to 15%. 

Also read: Carlos Ghosn on 'Hit Refresh: Transforming business through empathy'