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interface news reporter | liu jiaxin

botao shi will take over as audi globalsales director

marco schubert will succeed hildegard wortmann as member of the board of sales at audi ag, responsible for audi's global sales and marketing.

shi baitao has extensive experience in the chinese market. he served as the general manager of the faw-volkswagen audi sales division in 2018. in january 2021, faw audi sales company was established in hangzhou, and he served as the general manager of the new company; in july of the same year, he served as the vice president of porsche europe.

before joining audi, former sales director wortmann had been in charge of brand communication at bmw. in 1998, she joined the bmw group as head of brand communication, and then in 2018 her work began to shift to sales. she also moved to singapore to be responsible for bmw's sales in the asia-pacific region. in july 2019, wortmann became a member of the board of directors for sales and marketing at audi, and has also been responsible for sales at the volkswagen group level.

audi is currently facing many challenges in the chinese market. in the first half of the year, its sales in the chinese market were 320,400 vehicles, down 1.9% year-on-year. among them, the main sales force faw audi sold 301,600 vehicles, down 4.9% year-on-year, while the sales of saic audi, which accounted for a relatively small proportion, were 18,300 vehicles.

nezha auto replaces cfo and continues to advance ipo work

in early september, there was news that nezha auto's cfo chen rui had recently resigned, and former goldman sachs (asia) managing director pan deng would replace chen rui and be responsible for nezha auto's financial work.

later, nezha auto confirmed the news and said that the personnel adjustment was a normal change. pan deng will be responsible for nezha auto's ipo. the newly appointed pan deng worked at goldman sachs for 9 years, mainly responsible for investment banking business. before that, he also worked at merrill lynch and bank of america, an american consulting company, qrm. pan deng's appointment may help promote nezha auto's ipo process.

in june this year, nezha auto submitted an application for listing to the hong kong stock exchange. according to the prospectus of nezha auto, from 2021 to 2023, nezha auto's revenue will be 5.087 billion yuan, 13.050 billion yuan and 13.555 billion yuan respectively, with a cumulative loss of 18.373 billion yuan in three years; the gross profit margin has been continuously improving in the past three years, but it has not returned to positive.

great wall motors cto wang yuanli retires, intelligent vice president wu huixiao takes over

on september 2, wei jianjun, chairman of great wall motors, announced that great wall cto wang yuanli will officially retire on september 30, and wu huixiao will take over the position. during this period, wang yuanli will assist wu huixiao in a smooth transition and ensure the smooth progress of the work of the technical center.

wu huixiao is the first female cto of great wall motors.vice president of intelligence at great wall motors, he has recently appeared frequently in live broadcasts of great wall chairman wei jianjun.

wang yuanli, who is now retired, previously had extensive r&d experience in the automotive industry. he worked at the psa global technology r&d center in france, and later served as faurecia exhaust china operations director, dongfeng faurecia strategic cooperation general manager, and dongfeng faurecia exterior co., ltd. general manager in 2007.

in 2019, wang yuanli became the president of nobo, a company formed by integrating the parts business spun off by great wall motors, focusing on seats, interior and exterior trim, and rubber. later, wang yuanli became the chief technology officer of great wall.

great wall motors sold 94,500 vehicles in august, a year-on-year decrease of 17.21%; in the first eight months of this year, great wall motor's cumulative sales volume was 745,400 vehicles, a slight increase of 0.4% year-on-year.

ramon, a designer who worked for great wall and xiaopeng・jina joins dongfeng motor

dongfeng motor announced on september 9 that car designer ramon·ramon ginah joined dongfeng shanghai design center as design director.

ramon·gena has 25 years of experience in the automotive industry and has worked for many european and american luxury car brands such as maserati, ferrari, and alfa romeo. he started working for chinese auto companies in 2013 and was responsible for vehicle design at great wall motors and xiaopeng motors.

it is worth noting that dongfeng motor has recently welcomed two world-class automobile designers in succession. nicholas yue, who served as chief senior designer at bmw headquarters some time ago, has also joined dongfeng motor.

dongfeng motor group's cumulative automobile sales in the first eight months were 1.5828 million units, an increase of about 8.7% year-on-year. from january to august this year, dongfeng's sales of new energy vehicles were 530,000 units, exceeding last year's full-year sales, an increase of 108.5% year-on-year. you zheng, deputy general manager and member of the standing committee of the party committee of dongfeng motor group co., ltd., once said that dongfeng's self-owned brand new energy vehicles will sell nearly 900,000 units this year and will reach 1 million units next year.

gac group welcomes a new designer who has led the design of bmw i3 and i8

gac group has also welcomed an automotive designer with global vision and local experience.

recently, gac group announced that benoit jacob has officially joined gac and will fully support zhang fan, deputy director of gac research institute, in charge of design work. he graduated from the european art center school of design and joined renault in 1994.

later in 2001, ye binghuan joined volkswagen and helped volkswagen establish the audi concept design studio in munich. he participated in the design of volkswagen passat, audi r8, seat and lamborghini models, as well as the design work of the audi a series family.

in 2004, he joined bmw and led several important projects, one of which was the m1 hommage concept car, which later became the inspiration for the bmw i8. after that, he was appointed as the design director of the bmw i series sub-brand, leading the design work of the bmw i3 and i8.

it is worth noting that ye binghuan also has extensive experience in domestic automobile design. in 2016, he joined byton, a promising new car manufacturer at the time, as co-founder and senior vice president of design, responsible for the design, development and branding of byton's concept cars and mass-produced models. in 2021, byton declared bankruptcy, and ye binghuan subsequently joined nio as vice president of design, fully responsible for nio's product design, strategic planning and brand positioning.

in the first eight months of this year, gac group's cumulative sales volume was 1.1524 million vehicles, down 25.68% year-on-year. among them, the sales volume of gac honda, gac toyota, gac trumpchi and gac aion all declined year-on-year in august.