Russian Auto Industry

Maybe Russia can break out of the western racket.   The annual cosmetic redesign which serves no purpose is what drives the costs.
It is a trick to make getting replacement parts expensive.  So everyone is supposed to keep their car for only 4 years.   Russia can
"regress" to the actual good old days of the USSR.   Make the cars simpler and don't waste money on annual retooling.   Do it every
5 years or even long.   The proles will have to lump it.   It is tiresome to listen to how the "consumers drive the market".   BS.  Look
at mass media and entertainment.   The precious consumers eat the shit that they are dished out.

kvs wrote:Maybe Russia can break out of the western racket.   The annual cosmetic redesign which serves no purpose is what drives the costs.
It is a trick to make getting replacement parts expensive.  So everyone is supposed to keep their car for only 4 years.   Russia can
"regress" to the actual good old days of the USSR.   Make the cars simpler and don't waste money on annual retooling.   Do it every
5 years or even long.   The proles will have to lump it.   It is tiresome to listen to how the "consumers drive the market".   BS.  Look
at mass media and entertainment.   The precious consumers eat the shit that they are dished out.

Yeah I'm a big cynic of how Westerners are brainwashed into changing their car every 1 to 4 years.
The new cars are no better than the old in many cases. Harder to fix. Poor quality trim.
An obsession with "fuel economy".

I looked at changing one of my cars. And then realised it hasn't actually improved in recent years.
Put some aftermarket stuff on instead (satnav and media centre) which was better than BMW's own stuff.

Even my mother who is old and not a car fanatic.. seems brainwashed into the "newer is better".

People here seem to change cars for the same reason they change wallpaper. And its the taxpayer that funds massive factory retooling when a recession hits - because of crooked government lobbying.

Auto industry is extremely hard and competitive. It needs huge investments and return is usually over long term, if there's any, in the first place.
GL to them

That it certainly is so western car companies have done Russia an enormous favour by volunterily withdrawing from the Russian market leaving an enormous gap for Russian and Asian companies to fill.

Maybe Russia can break out of the western racket.

Very much agree. Cars should not be disposable consumer items like cell phones have become.

Make the modular and upgradable and reliable and simple and easy to work on.

I know this will be an unpopular comment, but I would like them to work with Iran on their car brand Khodro.

Russia is turning away from the west... any non western car maker should get their attention and they should be prepared to work with anyone.

Iran showed real talent and resourcefulness when the west cut them off in 1979, I have a lot of respect for what they have and can achieve... having a big friend would be good for them too.

Yes I think the most obvious choice is using a common platform with Lada and making their own shell that they then bolt on top of the common chassis.

With the electric motors being in the wheels and the lower body being the batteries for low cg, the idea of having different top shells you can attach to your "car" has been suggested for electric vehicles.

You could spend most of the week in a small two seater to get you to work and home, while for the weekend a big SUV for off road and camping gear, or shopping. An 8 seat people mover chassis for the sports on the weekend too with the bigger shells having longer bodies with more batteries for the extra weight perhaps.

Interesting news about sanctioned Lada Granta. New cars will not have:
ABS,
engine will be Euro-2 instead of Euro-5,
Airbag,
navigation suite and entertainment system.
It seems that there will be an uphill battle for localization or finding alternatives in the next few years.
https://t.me/istorijaoruzijaZ/7130

who needs cars designed to meet "EU Standards" anyway ?
set by a bunch of braindead cretins in Brussels who have zero idea of the consequences of their idiotic laws

who the hell needs 27 airbags ?

and IC engines .... to meet "environmental standards"
you now have buzzy little quad cam 4-valve turbocharged engines that only produce torque between 4-5000 rpm
and to keep the car actually moving at all and keep emissions low ....
you then need an 8-speed gearbox to keep the engine in such a narrow rev range
meanwhile you have exhaust emission sensors .... sensors every fn place
for what ?

for f..k sake I just drive my car to the supermarket most of the time ....

that Lada sounds great to me
get rid of all the wanky electronic crap
get a good "old fashioned" 2-valve long stroke engine with nice low down torque
and with a torquey engine - then you only need a simple easy to maintain 3-4 speed auto at most ....

and here's the point
to me it is utter madness to inflict an idiotic Brussels-spec car on regional Russia
why the f..k would you want buzzy little shitboxes with 8-9 speed autos in rural and regional Russia ?
you want nice simple robust cars ... easy to maintain

Brussels and the EU are such a bunch of total dipsticks
Russia should go its own way

side story for you ....
I went to Brussels once on business
there are massive new suburbs of glistening new high rises for all the useless parasites there - as far as the eye can see
big hotels and expensive restaurants everywhere
and as I suspected before I walked inside my hotel that night ..... yep .... 2-3 high end hookers in the bar near the check-in counter
I'd only been in the fn room for 5 minutes .... ( hadn't even opened my fn suitcase yet ) ....
and I get a phone call from a sultry voice "heello darlink would you like to come play viz me ?"
.... obviously the check-in counter girl gave my room number to her ... "spotter's fee"

.... sums that place up perfectly

I totally agree gazputin... what is worse is that one of the european engine makers actually had emission control stuff built into their engine that neutered the engine when they were doing emissions testing, but kept it turned off most of the time to get the fuel economy and performance that was promised.

It was VW I think but they were the ones that were caught... how likely is it that they are all doing something similar with their computer controlled engines...

Russia should drop all the EU shit they put up with... when Russia turns the gas off eventually either because the EU shoots itself in its own foot or because Russia totally loses patience and realises there are other customers who are not such whiny bitches... and then they will reopen their coal mines and coal fired power generation and lets see how their emissions stack up.

The core irony there is that if they just stuck to 10 or 15 year energy deals the price fluctuations now would not mean much and they could have put all the extra billions they are spending on killing more Russians in the Ukraine and also the higher price for energy on making solar and wind power generation better and more efficient... improved electric motors also means improved electric generators... some sort of carbon capture system you could attach to a tail pipe could have been developed too.

Airbag and ABS are important to reduce fatalities.

I think he means Russia needs to set its own standards and requirements based on Russian experience on Russian roads... things like emergency radios if you plan to drive down roads not often used in winter, and cars that are more cold resistent.

All that lane holding stuff and the auto parking stuff is interesting and would be developed as part of automatically driven cars and vehicles and some people might benefit from these things, but better braking systems and airbags and seat belts of course would be part of their basic standard requirements I would expect.

The rules should be about protecting the people of Russia rather than protecting the car makers.

The same with rules regarding food production and the creation of medicines too... they should be about protecting the people, the consumer... not the companies that make stuff.

lancelot wrote:Airbag and ABS are important to reduce fatalities. I also cannot imagine going back to a car without power steering.
But you are correct that the Euro emissions regulations are pretty much BS.
The navigation and entertainment system is pretty much extra cost and people can just use their smartphone anyway.

That is a straw man argument. Annual cosmetic change has zero to do with ABS, airbags and power steering. Technology
arrives on a totally different (longer) time scale than market-tard and parts shortage rackets. The western car manufacturing
model is a mafia one.

as you guys know by now I was in design and manufacturing for decades ...

I've been having a close look at Russia's car industry (Lada) .... and you know they ain't that far behind at all
(particularly if you ignore wanky EU regs)

this is a very good little article it shows the platforms in the Lada/Renault camp ...

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/proautobiz/avtovaz-postaviat-na-rossiiskie-relsy-kto-zaplatit-za-eto-628cb9ba2d486972bdedcd0e?&

it is excellent you can see that Lada has 2x older tech .... knock em down simple platforms

BAZ-118 - which the basic road going Granta sedan is built on
BAZ-2121/2123 - this is the Niva and the recently restyled Lada Niva Travel ..... for off roaders essentially

then they have this - more modern

Lada B/C - this is the Vesta ....
but it clearly is meant for "B" and "C" segment road cars
this has nothing wrong with it at all .....
it is essentially an update of the BAZ-118 ..... for road cars .... but in 2x segments

the BO/Global is the Renault rework essentially of their own "Lada B/C"
they reworked it to be able to do SUVs, cars and electric drives on the 1x platform
so in reality it is a merger of the BAZ-118, BAZ 2121/3 and Lada B/C ....

so if you fast forward to Lada's "Anti-Sanction" Action Plan

first car they build ? ...... a Granta .... BAZ-118
it will have electric windows and mirrors and power steering .....
it will have a nice old-school long stroke engine
it won't have air con as standard ..... or airbags

already being built ...

next vehicles ? next platform/s BAZ-2121/2123
Lada Niva and Lada Niva Travel

plan is July ..... same sort of spec as BAZ-118

next the B/C stuff .... but they are hoping to have more electronics by then ..... later in 2022

and btw the Renault BO ..... they mostly want to build the Sandero, Largus ..... and drop the other wanky models
but these will require "cute" component sourcing as they are designed from the ground up on Renault platforms

probably late 2022 - early 2023


meanwhile Renault "agreement"
the Sandero, Duster etc that were built at Moskvitch factory in Moscow on the Renault "BO" platform
all tooling is being transferred to Togliatti
this is exactly inline with the Renault strategy pre Ukraine
move all Lada models to mirror Romanian Dacia models on the "BO" chassis
"BO" chassis is leaving Moscow Moskvitch plant ....
so Moskvitch will have to build a "lada" chassis car .... or probably do a Chinese SKD

so the Lada B/C ..... all-rus

3-4yrs from now They will release their own "BO" platform
that is based on the Lada B/C ....
and yes it will be ok for road, SUV and electric models

..... it all makes perfect sense

and I think Moskvitch would probably like to go onto this new Rus platform
currently it only does "Renault" BO platform stuff .... no "Lada"
so they will need to switch almost everything ...
but it might be easier to do a Chinese SKD instead for a few years ..... until the new platform ....

probably what is happening is that this B/C platform rework
if Renault want back in at Togliatti in 5-6 years as per agreement
the Moskvitch factory in Moscow will use it exclusively

.... it sure smells this way to me

and this NAMI outfit ..... creating platforms and engines is not a huge challenge for them
these guys are really smart .... they did the Aurus

basically I think it is a done deal
Moskvitch plant will be home of the 100% Russian car - on the "updated" B/C platform
regardless of what Renault decides to do ....

and that factory it will be replicated outside Moscow
and if Renault don't want back in .... Togliatti will also go 100% Russian design

I should have added this the other day ....

A "platform" is expected and needs to last for at least 8 years - due to the huge capital cost in the factory
the platform is the base and the central survival cell .... this includes the roof and your door openings
due to the cost of this bit - you are "stuck" with the central structure for 8 years
(you can do some stuff like do different door skins but not much else)

so your platform ..... 8 years

the other parts of your car are the front and rear crumple zones ..... behind the rear axle and in front of the front axle
this is where the "styling updates" happen

so first "update" is 2 years in ..... minor cosmetic changes
generally minor badging - fiddling with grills and light fittings
why do they do this ?
to keep the "design" fresh .... but the main reason is really to get dealers to get older cars off their showroom floors
and it also gives the chance for the "runout sale !"

4 years in ....
a bigger styling change ..... quite noticeable change to the styling and interior
.... once again .... "runout sale !!!"
get all the old stock off showroom floors
and design-out any bad/hard to build bits etc that are causing warranty issues etc
and here is where you may see the door skins reworked ....

6 years in .....
a minor styling update to your "4th year" restyle
once again "runout sale !!!"
this time there are usually lots of extras like better stereo etc as the design generally is getting a bit dated ....
wanky names like "Anniversary Edition" ... etc

8 years ..... new platform

so my point here is .... which I apologise for not adding the other day

when Lada/NAMI say they can do a new platform in 3-4 years
its not as though every car manufacturer's platforms on the planet is anywhere near the "8 year" mark
so they need to keep using their "old platform" .... for anything between 1-8 years
as they have big sunk costs there

so you start to see quite quickly that the Rus are probably mid-pack
and given a clear go at it - having no international wankers sticking their noses in
they can progress their design pretty quickly

and having what looks like a pretty good Lada B/C platform to develop from
and having already done a similar exercise on the Aurus range
I think NAMI are going to surprise a lot of people ...

they also have had a front row seat of the new Renault BO platform
that can do road cars, SUVs and electrification option

I think they are not "behind" at all - more like mid-pack ...

Why can't russians produce ABS systems? Don't russian trucks have ABS?

https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/57923

Why are they all crossovers? Russia doesn't have a large soccer mom demographic. Crossovers are inherently less spacious, have poorer fuel economy due to higher drag and are more prone to tipping over due to height, than hatchbacks and combis. They're also less reliable because of higher wear and tear on the chassis due to increased weight. Its a testament to capitalist technological retardation and regression.

Most western car making companies building cars in Russia would use their own technology over local products to increase their profit margin.

Now they are leaving existing product makers will get a chance to massively expand their business.

The MiG-25 had anti skid brakes in the 1960s... when coming in to land you apply full brakes and its stopped you in the shortest distance even on icy strips.

limb wrote:Why can't russians produce ABS systems? Don't russian trucks have ABS?

https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/57923

Why are they all crossovers? Russia doesn't have a large soccer mom demographic. Crossovers are inherently less spacious, have poorer fuel economy due to higher drag and are more prone to tipping over due to height, than hatchbacks and combis. They're also less reliable because of higher wear and tear on the chassis due to increased weight.  Its a testament to capitalist technological retardation and regression.

Fuel economy is probably not all that important when gas is 80 cents a liter.

SUV/CUV has better ground clearance, very useful when going to the dacha, as those back roads are often unpaved and generally bumpy. Major roads, highways etc have seen an astronomical facelift in Russia over the recent decade, but you don't have stray far from the main roads to find a lunar landscape.

Also, "soccer moms", well, housewife culture remains big in RU. Actually, it's kind of a revival rather, as during USSR times it was super "progressive" so to speak, and everybody worked.

Moskvich will form a dealer network, 10.04.2022.

Moskvich is preparing to bring the Moskvich car to the market and will form a dealer network.

MOSCOW, 4 Oct - RIA Novosti. The Moscow automobile plant "Moskvich" has begun to form a dealer network, applications are being accepted from candidates from 23 cities of Russia, according to a press release from the automaker.

"We continue to prepare for the launch of the Moskvich car on the market and have begun to form a dealer network. Today we have opened the acceptance of applications for obtaining the status of an official dealer for sales and maintenance," the report says.

"At the first stage, we will accept applications from candidates from 23 cities of Russia. Applications are open until October 21," the press release says.

The company emphasized that Moskvich relies on electric vehicles, so one of the mandatory criteria is the willingness to create an infrastructure for their demonstration, sale and maintenance.

In May, the French automaker Renault handed over its Renault Russia plant to the Moscow government . Shortly after the completion of the transaction, the name of the enterprise was changed to "Moskvich". According to the company's plans, the plant will produce four crossovers and a sedan. First, a SKD assembly will be launched, in the future - the production of cars from deep localizations on its own platform.

https://ria.ru/20221004/moskva-1821324196.html

https://gazglobal.com/media/news/gazelle_e_nn_on_the_roads_of_nizhny_novgorod/

GAZelle e-NN is Russia’s first electric LCV. It is based on commonized parts of GAZ light commercial vehicles
and has all-new electric systems, e.g. traction batteries, electric motor, voltage converter, charger, etc. The new
electric GAZelle can carry 17 passengers, and its GVW is 4.6 tons.

The electric motor is synchronous with permanent magnets, its max. power is 100 kW and its max. torque is 310 Nm.
The battery storage capacity is 48 kWh. The vehicle can run 120 km on a single charge at the maximum speed of
100 km/h. If required by the customer, additional batteries can be installed increasing the range up to 200 km. The
system supports fast-charging technology that charges the battery up to 80% in just 30 min. The EBV uses regenerative
braking to help top up the battery, which is a really good feature during city trips with multiple stops.

This may not sound like a fancy vehicle but it is rather a big deal. A commercial electric van with a GVW of 4.6 tons
that is viable with pure electric power is nothing to sneeze at. Some of the US electric pickup trucks that can carry
barely 1.6 tons have their range implode with a full load. So they are basically a joke.

Russia could abandon electric vehicle development in the current geopolitical climate but it is proceeding with it. Russia
has the critical development level for advancement of a wide spectrum of technology and is not just coasting on oil and
gas revenues like a banana republic.

GarryB wrote:

Very much agree. Cars should not be disposable consumer items like cell phones have become.

Make the modular and upgradable and reliable and simple and easy to work on.

.

Yes Russia has a record for producing rugged, easy to fix, pretty durable stuff. In planes, Kamaz trucks etc and I suppose things like the old Lada.

Modern Western cars are horrific.
One of my cars is a BMW. Its not that old, it does tiny mileage annual and its been really looked after

Anyway, it needed a job doing after a warning light appeared the first trip after the major service and statutory legal service.
The labour quote wasn't that bad. But BMW prices for replacement parts even on older (expired) models are now ridiculous.
Added to that, the private sale value of the vehicle if fixed is probably the same as the cost of the repair. So you might say "Ok scrap it".

Problem is, dealer prices are way above private sale prices, even for cars with a higher mileage and only slightly newer. And of course those cars could **** up as well soon after sale.

Manufacturers seem to have cornered the parts market and parts have rocketed in price. It means its of similar cost to actually lease hire a new or newish vehicle vs repairing an older car.


Old cars used to be easy to fix. With spares being cheap. My BMW is pretty low milegage, far too low to scrap, IMO. Especially given that cars of 30 yrs ago would routinely do far more miles .

I have another vehicle I use most of the time. But I'd imagine with a huge recessoon looming in the West, many people would have a huge dilemna of expensive repair (more than the value of the car) vs overpriced replacement vs the nonsense of a newer car that you don't even own!

Its getting to the stage of Klaus Schwab the ubercunt with his World Economic Forum and "You will own nothing and be happy".

So much for "sustainability". If Russia did a business model of repairable long lasting cars that would appeal to many people.
But generally newer vehicles are nonsensically expensive for what is usually an overpriced piece of shit with massive depreication itself.
Surely Kamaz and NAMI can provide the basis of such a plan... if so desired. And I suspect there is little need for the hideous laptop batterypower gimmick that the Russophobic ie oil producer-phobic West is promoting.

It is now an obvious pattern in consumer products for them to be quickly disposable trash. Everything from hand blenders to cars.
I have seen the degradation with my own eyes. For f*ck's sake even the laces on new shoes are total rubbish. They are made
with the wrong synthetic fiber and untie themselves while walking. In the bad old days, this would never happen.

People can laugh at old timers going on about the good old days, but the old timers are witnesses to the progress of long-term
degeneration in society. We may have more bells and whistles and frills in our consumer junk, but it is getting junkier all the time.
This is entropy maximization as the detritus produced by society is increasing per capita with time.

kvs wrote:Maybe Russia can break out of the western racket.   The annual cosmetic redesign which serves no purpose is what drives the costs.
It is a trick to make getting replacement parts expensive.  So everyone is supposed to keep their car for only 4 years.   Russia can
"regress" to the actual good old days of the USSR.   Make the cars simpler and don't waste money on annual retooling.   Do it every
5 years or even long.   The proles will have to lump it.   It is tiresome to listen to how the "consumers drive the market".   BS.  Look
at mass media and entertainment.   The precious consumers eat the shit that they are dished out.

Bad, idea. Soviet stagnated their Automobile manufacturers because of exactly that. Keeping automobiles on the production line that should have been replaced decades ago and or barely refreshing them.