Fred SchulzeFred Schulze (pictured) will take up a new role as executive vice-president at SAIC VW – the joint venture between Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and Volkswagen Group – at the beginning of July this year.

He moves from his role at Audi where he is responsible for the C-/ D-SUV and crossover series.

The position at SAIC VW was previously held by Dr Christian Vollmer who is moving as previously reported to become executive vice-president for production of the Seat brand.

Schulze started his career with Audi at the Neckarsulm plant in Germany in 1993. Following roles in quality assurance and body production, he joined Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles in 2004. From 2010, he was head of production of the Volkswagen plant in Emden, before becoming manager of the Audi Neckarsulm plant in 2012 and manager of the Ingolstadt plant in 2015.

At SAIC VW, he will be responsible for production, logistics and product management.

SAIC Volkswagen sold more than 2m vehicles last year, a 3% increase on 2016. Volkswagen Group China said that overall results, including SAIC-VW and FAW-VW, amounted to almost 4.2m vehicles being delivered to mainland China and Hong Kong last year, up 5.1% on the previous year.