The Shanghai Jiading District Market Supervision Bureau has officially opened an investigation into SAIC Volkswagen Automotive Sales Co., Ltd. This action follows a public controversy surrounding a marketing campaign launched by the company in October.
The dispute arose after SAIC Audi published a promotional post titled 'Celebrate Qinwen's Victory! Buy one get one free on the entire AUDI series' to mark Zheng Qinwen's win at the 2026 China Open. The campaign led to significant public backlash regarding the misleading nature of the headline.
The company later clarified that the 'buy one get one free' offer actually referred to a scale model car, not a full-sized vehicle. Furthermore, the offer was restricted to only two specific electric vehicle models, the E5 and E7X, rather than the entire brand lineup.
Following the criticism, SAIC Audi updated the original post on its official WeChat account. The revised headline now explicitly states: 'Congratulations to Qinwen on winning! Buy one get one free on the entire AUDI series, get a model car'.
