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According to the National Enterprise Information and Credit publicity system, the industry and commerce of Audi (China) Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. has changed. Wen Zeyue (DR JUERGEN UNSER) stepped down as legal representative and manager, and Luo Yinhan (JOHANNES ROSCHECK) took over. It is understood that Audi China was founded in April 2009 with a registered capital of 50 million yuan and is wholly owned by Audi Automobile Co., Ltd.

According to the data, Wen Zeyue joined Volkswagen Group in 2004 and held management positions in the production departments of Volkswagen Commercial vehicles and Audi, as well as the production planning and production strategy departments of Volkswagen Group. In 2013, Wen Zeyue was appointed Deputy General Manager and Director of FAW-Volkswagen Co., Ltd. (technology), responsible for technology research and development, product management and manufacturing. During this period, Wen Zeyue has been put into operation through ten new FAW-Volkswagen plants, including Audi's new production bases in Foshan, Tianjin and Qingdao. In January 2022, Wen Zeyue succeeded an Shihao as president of Audi China for two years and three months.

This is Audi's second major personnel change in nearly a year. On September 1st, 2023, Audi announced that Gernot Dollner, vice president of products and group strategy of Volkswagen Group, had replaced Marcus Markus Duesmann as Audi's new CEO. Then, on November 7, 2023, the industrial and commercial change took place in Audi China, and Dussman withdrew, adding Baird and Gaudeno, of which Gaudi served as chairman of Audi China.

Behind the personnel reshuffle, or to reverse Audi's disadvantage in the domestic luxury car market, Audi has stagnated in third place since it lost the title of No. 1 in China's luxury car market in 2019. Although there are fuel vehicles at the bottom, with the trend of new energy, Audi needs to fight in two directions, and compared with Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi's response to the electrified transformation lags behind.

In 2023, Audi was the fastest growing BBA in China, with sales up 13.5 per cent, BMW 4.2 per cent and Mercedes-Benz 1.7 per cent. However, Audi still ranks third in sales, with 739000 vehicles sold for the year, 765000 for Mercedes-Benz and 825000 for BMW, with a gap of 86000.

In the electric transformation, Audi also obviously lags behind these two luxury brands. At present, Volkswagen provides Audi with four electrified platforms, namely MEB, MLB evo, J1 and PPE, of which MEB and MLB are "oil-to-electricity" and basically uncompetitive. J1 and PPE are jointly developed by Porsche and Audi. J1 is an electric sports car platform, so Audi can only count on the PPE platform. Audi will launch the A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron models based on the PPE platform in 2024. It can be seen that although Audi has four platforms, its competitiveness is not strong, and it is not clear whether PPE can take the lead. The pricing of models based on PPE platform is very critical. Too high pricing may affect Porsche's brand premium, while too low pricing may damage the image of its own luxury brand.

In fact, both Audi and parent company Volkswagen are aware of the brand's shortcomings in new energy. In this context, the burden of the successor Johannes is not light. It is understood that Johannes Roscheck is a mechanical engineer with a doctorate in economics and more than 25 years of experience in finance and production in the automotive industry. From 2017 to 2022, Johannes Roscheck was responsible for Audi's business operations in Brazil as Audi's Brazilian CEO. In addition, he has held management positions in Volkswagen Group in Hungary, the United States and Germany.

In the Chinese market, Audi also wants to use the power of local carmakers to keep up with the fast-paced transformation. In July 2023, SAIC announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Audi, which will speed up the development of SAIC Audi's new electric models. The two sides agreed that China's auto market is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, so it will further deepen strategic cooperation and open a new chapter of cooperation to provide a guarantee for win-win results. It has been revealed that this cooperation Audi hopes to obtain three-electricity system, get off the car body, smart driving system and other related technology, but the appearance, interior design and other modeling design is controlled by Audi independently.

In the fiercely competitive Chinese electric car market, Audi's position is far lower than it used to be in terms of product strength and influence. With the return of domestic new energy vehicles to market drivers, the real competition has only just begun. And how Audi finds its own position is more important.

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