Russian Auto Industry

kvs wrote:https://evocargo.com/

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211010005074/en/Evocargo-Enters-European-and-Middle-Eastern-Markets-With-Market-Proven-Logistics-Service-Delivered-by-Its-Autonomous-Trucks

Looks like a Russian company with an international footprint.  

A small addition - these cars are assembled on the basis of the UAZ chassis.

Truck sales in Russia on course for all-time record, 12.10.2023.

More than 120,000 new vehicles were sold in the country in the first 11 months of the year.

Sales of new trucks in Russia have been skyrocketing this year, with sales topping 128,000 vehicles between January and November, according to data published this week by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Statistics show that during the 11-month reporting period, truck sales reached 128,069 vehicles, an 81.5% annual increase. In November alone, 12,067 trucks were sold in the country. Analysts expect final sales for 2023 to surpass the all-time high of 128,900, recorded in 2012.

Of the trucks sold in Russia so far this year, giant KAMAZ has sold the largest number, 26,066 vehicles, taking a 20% share of the market. It was followed by Chinese manufacturers Sitrak (21,678), Shacman (18,540), and FAW (11,782).

Experts have noted that the boom in truck sales stems from several factors. With Western sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, many carmakers left the country’s market, including Volvo Trucks, Mercedes, Scania, MAN, DAF, Iveco, Renault, Mitsubishi, Fuso, and Isuzu. As a result, last year many Russian importers were either unable to quickly find replacements or decided to postpone new truck purchases. This year, according to a recent report by consultants at Expert RA, most large motor carriers and construction companies have instead been “actively covering the fleet deficit” with Chinese vehicles.

“In conditions when manufacturers from Europe stopped supplying cars and spare parts and revoked service licenses, we had to choose Chinese cars,” the head of the road services firm Avtoban Motor Transport, Konstantin Kourov, told Vedomosti news outlet.

According to him, there are “no problems” with the supply of dump trucks and spare parts from China, and the price of a Chinese dump truck can be up to three times lower than that of an EU-made one.

Another reason for the demand for trucks was the rapid growth of cargo transportation by road amid the rise in Russia’s trade with Asian partners and the active implementation of large infrastructure projects. According to Rosstat, between January and September, vehicle freight turnover in the country jumped by 17.9% year-on-year.

Since the start of the year, sales of new cars in Russia have surged by 58.8%, amounting to roughly 1.2 million vehicles.

https://www.rt.com/business/588824-truck-sales-russia-record/

Oreshkin predicted the “fading into history” of Mercedes and BMW, by Vera Basilaya for VZGLYAD. 12.26.2023.

Oreshkin said that he does not exclude the possibility of Mercedes and BMW becoming history.
Global automobile companies, such as the German Mercedes and BMW, may become history in ten years, said Russian Presidential Aide Maxim Oreshkin.

Oreshkin, in an interview with the Expert publication , noted that today China has become the number one exporter of cars in the world, and therefore in ten years Mercedes and BMW may become history, RT reports .

He added that as brands they would probably remain, but would follow the same fate as Volvo, which was sold to China.

According to him, European manufacturers have lost the market and do not have the advantage in technology that they had five to ten years ago.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, answering a question about the “expansion” of Chinese cars into Russia, noted their cost and quality. According to him, prices for Russian cars will decline as production increases.

https://vz.ru/news/2023/12/26/1246103.html

An entire German automotive industry sits in debts Nase voll.
VAG group has close to 200 bln euro debt, while Mercedes and BMW are not much better.
As long as interest rates were close to zero, it made no difference. But that is history.

Seems like the Moskvich factory in Moscow started to weld car bodies, using delivered components.
A closed cycle is just around the corner ...



The speed of this process is impressive and has nothing to do with cooperation with the western companies, I would say ...

I have a funny observation

It seems that as winter arrived to Russia, and more and more Chinese cars are being used there - an inevitable clash of Chinese technology versus General Winter appeared

It is getting viral to present some cars with electronics just go rampage & crazy.
Effects are hilarious, like mirroring the graphic on the screen, or looping and restarting the system again and again ...

Well ... Why the thing is interesting you might ask? Because it is being used to make fun of Chinese cars as general.
The problem is, that I got just the same results with my factory new Mazda CX-5 a while ago. With only some minus 15 Celsius, the car simply turned into a Xmas tree. All the lights and icons on screens were on, the same time, and no other reaction was achieved.
We had to tow it to the dealer service, only to figure that ... everything was back to normal as soon as it was +20 deg inside.

My factory new Peugeot 5008 in winter was rebooting the system all over. It could drive, but no screen was operating, nor radio, navigation etc.
Minus 10 C was good enough

I am pretty sure that both proud products of European and Japan car industry would do much better at Russkie winter, with minus 30 outside as it was in one of these films with "shitty Chinese cars"

When the peak of covid hysteria struck the auto industry, BMW started to offer top line models with the electronic suite of the previous generation.
My friend bought an X7 back then, only to get it with the previous generation central console joystick
What was hilarious was the fact, that you could have bought the latest systems without any issues ... on Aliexpress

What is hidden behind the new AvtoVAZ model Xcite, by Olga Samofalova for VZGLYAD. 01.31.2024.

Who helps AvtoVAZ expand its model line.

At the former Nissan plant, which is now managed by AvtoVAZ, production of cars under the new Xcite brand began. Sales will start this spring. Where did AvtoVAZ suddenly get a new model from? And what will it be like?

At the subsidiary plant of AvtoVAZ, the former St. Petersburg Nissan plant, production of cars under the new Xcite brand began. They have even produced the first batch of several thousand cars. Sales will begin in the spring of 2024, but in the meantime, stock is being accumulated. AvtoVAZ, with a certain international partner, plans to launch several models at this plant, which was empty after the Japanese left.

There is little official information about this project yet. They promise to tell it only at the end of February, probably before the start of official sales. According to unofficial information, converted Chinese Chery cars will be produced under the new Xcite brand. And the Chery Tiggo 7 Pro crossover may be the first to roll off the assembly line in St. Petersburg.

In 2023, this car took fifth place among the best-selling passenger cars in Russia. This model is often found in car sharing and taxis. Its price (with a 1.5 liter engine) in Russia starts at 2.570 million rubles. It is not yet known how much a car under the Xcite brand will cost.

Why does AvtoVAZ need such cooperation with a Chinese concern and why would a Chinese give its model for production under a new brand at a Russian plant? This story is, in fact, beneficial for both sides, and for the empty Nissan plant too.

“AvtoVAZ has always had an unacceptably short model line.

If a Russian plant wants to claim the role of a serious national manufacturer, then it needs to expand its model range. We don’t have our own resources for this, so we bring in a machine that can be made under a license. This is normal practice. In the end, AvtoVAZ itself started with this, because Zhiguli is a Fiat license.

There's nothing wrong with that."– says Igor Morzharetto, partner of the analytical agency Autostat. You may recall that AZLK also began producing the redesigned JAC S3 as Moskvich-3.

“After the French left, AvtoVAZ lost a lot in its ability to adapt, and even more so, to develop new brands. In such a situation, assembling a Chinese car is a reasonable solution to restore market position in the crossover segment of the average price segment by modern standards,” says Sergei Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service.

“The plant near St. Petersburg has been idle for a year, but there is a modern line and experienced personnel who at one time assembled quite good X-Trails. The opportunity to relaunch it, and even with an analogue brand of the former production, is a strategically very correct decision. In addition, the main line of AvtoVAZ has lost modern systems (automatic transmission, robot, security systems), while Chery has all this almost as good as Western brands. Also, joint production means savings on recycling fees, which means an opportunity to sell the car cheaper than the Chinese original,” points out Grishunin.

In his opinion, it is unlikely that we are talking about creating AvtoVAZ’s own platform; rather, it will be a large-scale assembly with a larger share of domestic components. “The Chinese will have the opportunity to import more vehicle kits, as well as popularity in the Russian market, where there is still prejudice against the Chinese automobile industry. Only the number of cars sold will help break it,” says Grishunin.

“Screwdriver assembly from machine kits reduces the requirements for technological capacity and qualifications of workers, and due to the peculiarities of customs legislation, bringing a car in parts and assembling it in the country is cheaper than importing a finished product right away,” points out Artem Deev, head of the analytical department of AMarkets.

A reasonable question arises: how will the real Chery Tiggo 7 Pro crossover and its new version under the Xcite brand exist in the same market? Won't they interfere with each other?

“The existence of clone brands is not a problem in the market. The example of Moskvich and JAC is proof of this. Russian assembly has always been considered less reliable than Chinese, so differentiating customers on this basis will make it possible to distribute sales into different niches,” says Grishunin. According to him, Chery Tiggo 7 will occupy the niche of affordable SUVs from Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia and Huindai. “With a price tag of around 2.6 million rubles, they will sell up to 50 thousand a year. Savings on domestic assembly can reduce the price to 2.2 million rubles, then the demand potential is much higher - up to 70-80 thousand units per year,” the expert calculated.

Artem Deev suggests that cars in cheap trim levels and with reduced technical functionality will be produced under the Xcite brand, while the full “adult” version will remain the prerogative of purely Chinese cars. “This practice has long been rooted in the global automobile industry. The same VW Polo and Skoda Rapid are actually the same car with minimal differences in the design of the exterior and interior. However, they are positioned in different segments and do not interfere with each other’s sales. The same will happen in the case of Chery Xcite,” the expert believes.

Morzharetto does not exclude that there could be agreements that if a Chinese model begins to be produced under the Xcite brand, then its analogue under the Chinese brand will be removed from the Russian market.

“Perhaps Chery is ready to bring to market a new model under its own brand, but they decided to launch a good popular model, but of the previous generation, into production under license under a different brand,”– the interlocutor explains.

This is not Chery's first attempt to conquer the Russian market. Chery is one of the first Chinese car brands to come to Russia back in the early 2000s. However, his first entry and assembly of cars at Avtotor in 2006 was not a great success, so production was curtailed two years later.

“Chery’s first entry into Russia was unsuccessful, because the Chinese were just getting their teeth into copying other people’s solutions, the technology was still in its infancy, and the build quality left much to be desired. Now the automotive industry from the Middle Kingdom is quite competitive,” notes Deev.

“In 2006, Chery was much inferior in quality to Europeans, and the cars sold frankly poorly, so the Chinese, not seeing the market potential, left it. Today, when the market is empty, prices are sky-high, and the Chinese auto industry is already on par in reliability with the Koreans ten years ago, the prospect of assembling Chinese cars in Russia is quite bright,” says Grishunin. In his opinion, if cooperation with AvtoVAZ is successful, Chery and Exeed may have their own sites in Russia. “Most likely, the Chinese strategy includes plans for cooperation, their own factories, and the import of Chinese exclusives,” Grishunin does not rule out.

https://vz.ru/economy/2024/1/31/1251085.html