Russian Auto Industry

Pretty sure you know what are you talking about?
The biggest sales volume in Russia is achieved by Lada models which are all indigenous projects.
Some of them are absurd old designs but work perfectly fine in some of Russia's regions. The same way as 5.7l HEMI works perfectly fine in some of US wastelands.
Vesta, X-Ray and all the following are being made using the Russian platform.
Most of the engines are Russian, it is enough to check it's parameters. Who other makes a 1.8l 140KM engines now?!?
Sure they lack some subsystems, just like ANY other.
Ever wondered why covid traffic jam and Malasya closing almost killed entire German car manufacturing?
Close China, and we will see how far they will ride
Close Turkey, and watch Toyota dying in the daylight.

Bro, they have just released new redesigned versions of flagships.
Elonged Vesta is already being delivered to administration bodies to replace foreign cars.
New Niva as well.
Tell me where you can buy a B-segment car, factory new, for $8k? India?
They are only heating up, new supply chain buildup is not an easy thing, you know ...

For some cars are a religion and licence production of a foreign type is blasphemy, but as far as I am concerned a car is a tool for getting you from place to place and whether you designed it or some guy somewhere else on the planet designed it is meaningless.

Russia should focus on making cheap simple cars that go forever that you can fix for yourself.

All the flash expensive stuff that gets put in modern cars is mostly BS, but the safety stuff is worth copying, but most of it is BS and just something else to fail and to make the car more expensive to buy and to run and to fix.

They have an empty factory doing nothing. They have made an agreement to get some cars assembled there... that is the important part of the story.

It seems to me that they need to ensure there are cars in every niche and to try to make them all unique purely Russian designs is just BS pride... let it go... the Japs and the South Koreans make some nice cars but so does China and so does Iran and Russia makes good cars too... European cars are essentially banning themselves with their ridiculous prices and now sanctions on parts and support.

This is a great opportunity for factories in Russia to start working and they can look at designs and technology and perhaps develop and evolve foreign car types to the Russian conditions and Russian market that might eventually lead to unique new Russian designs... but that would entail a lot of talent and also a lot of risk... they shouldn't be taking risks now when literal Eurotrash has just left the market... the civil aircraft industry is Russianising some promising brand new Russian designs and resurrecting some old Russian types to fill the gaps. With the money earned producing these aircraft and their engines money will be available to invest in improvements and new technology to upgrade all these types and also look for gaps where new types can be built and put into use.

as you guys know me by now ... a numbers guy and pragmatist ...

"As previously reported by AUTOSTAT, the approved production plan of AVTOVAZ for 2024 involves an increase in car production by 33% to 500 thousand units. It is planned to sell about 450 thousand LADA cars in the Russian market,

while the company expects to supply more than 100 thousand cars of this number under the state order. In general, according to the company's forecast, the volume of the Russian car market in the coming year will increase by 5-10%, amounting to about 1.2 million cars. In addition, in 2024, AvtoVAZ intends to increase export deliveries to 20-25 thousand LADA cars."

100,000 State orders ..... in 2024
that absolutely reeks of big orders for the Lada Largus van .... my guess is Ruspost .... and Ambulances etc

gotta love when they just ignore Western bullshit "free market" drivel ....
f..k that .... lets pump some volume through our factory and get component costs down

"So, in May 2024, it is planned to launch serial production of the LADA e-Largus electric car at the LADA-Izhevsk plant along with the resumption of production of standard LADA Largus with internal combustion engines.
In September, it is planned to launch the production of the LADA Aura business class sedan."

how to run a country properly ....

any factory guy knows that the way to run a factory is to overclock it .... these guys know what they are doing
Izhevsky plant will hum from day 1 .... re Largus

meanwhile they get their core Vesta range bedded down - and launch the longer wheelbase Aura ....in 2024
and next will be a crossover/suv surely on the longer Aura wheelbase .... which is much the same as the RAV4 ... in 2025

probably with a fat "state order" to kick start sales yes ... and why not

anyone in the West knows what a load of crap electric cars are ....
once you get past the "early adopters" what then ?

in Russia they use their brain
makes most sense as urban cars ..... taxis and car hire

70% business sector .... car sharing etc

"As Anatoly Kiyashko, Director for Government Relations of Kama JSC, reported earlier, the company received 105 thousand pre-orders for the Atom electric car, of which about 70% are in the business segment. According to him, the company is negotiating with all major players in the car-sharing and taxi market. Customers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad and Moscow regions show the greatest interest in the Atom electric car. "In addition, this is, of course, Tatarstan: Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny. This is the Kaliningrad Region, because there is a very strong history of infrastructure development there. Also, the target regions for us are the south. These are Krasnodar and other southern regions," added the top manager of Kama JSC.

and as Moscow has such critical mass re population .... all the Moscow mayor needs to do is
put out an edit to remove non-electric taxis from their roads ..... and suddenly his Moskvitch plant (doing license build)
will be swamped with orders

which is exactly how BYD started .... in 1x mega city - via electric buses
now look at it .... critical mass on a global scale

and that is the point get your orders in early and recoup your capital investment asap
and then all future profit goes straight to the bottom line
and even better ... overclock your factory - run 2-3 shifts a day
ka-ching ......

dumbarse West still doesn't get it .....
China is a collection of massive city states ..... with over 20 mil population in each
it isn't a "centrally planned" top down country-wide megastructure ....

more than enough to get incredibly fast paybacks on investments
if the local govt basically places an edict to buy local ....

US/UK media is so fn dumb .... I die laughing almost every day reading their mindless drivel
Has-Been Kingdom media ... lol lol

I do not like too much electric buses.
If you want something electric there are already tram and filobus, and you do not have to cope with very polluting batteries (polluting for production and end of life disposal).

Small mini cars are the only thing that can make sense at the moment.

By the way, I was reading a few days ago about some issues with the electric buses in an italian town.

all those electric buses have major charging problems that have not been solved even years after purchase. They consume over 10 times the declared amount on the climbs in the historic center and go into high temperature block as soon as it gets hot, leaving passengers stuck inside until the firefighters arrive because not even the air conditioning and emergency exits which are electric no longer work! Absurd!

They go into thermal protection even during the night-time charging (according to them on paper they would have been sufficiently recharged in 10 minutes of transit at the end station between one trip and another ) so at night you have to monitor the charging otherwise in the morning you will find the batteries completely ran out of charge.

Under several clauses, this so-called "electromobility" is not a bad idea.

First and foremost, it can be applied only in environment that has big net electricity production, and infrastructure to transfer this energy where it's needed.
Second, this energy must be inexpensive, which means atomic. Not only we consider the production process here, but what is more important, is the pricing policy.
Third, at the existing level of technology, it works only for small distance or urban mobility.
Fourth, it would be perfect if both cars and batteries would be produced locally.

Now, if one will make a fact check - Russia fits all points.
They are a big net producer of energy, and invest heavily in the grid reconstruction for the last 20 years.
They produce inexpensive energy, that is being delivered to the population at fair prices, which are insanely low if compared to European ones. An average Russian pays 7 cents for kWh. SEVEN CENTS.
It is 44 cents in the UK, and 52 cents in Ireland.
See the gap?!?
The bulk of the cars that are being subsidized are small city cars, buses, city transportation and deliveries.
Last but not least, batteries are already being produced locally in Russia, using Russian made cells...

Imagine a situation in let's say UK. They can't afford electricity bills now.
There is a measure called "fuel poverty" that is being accounted.
6.3 mln households at the end of 2023. That applies to combined electricity and gas, but it is irrelevant.
How are they to afford to have electric-powered cars, at existing prices?!?
My friend bought a Mercedes electric van for his company operations.
When I was talking to him last time, he calculated the fuel efficiency as an equivalent of 11l of oil per 100km.
It is not bad for a loaded van in city transport, but only as long as you don't calculate the price gap he paid at arrival - it was twice as expensive as fossil fuel driven.
But this was BEFORE a sharp electricity price increase, that de facto doubled my own bills from 2022 to 2024.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:
By the way, I was reading a few days ago about some issues with the electric buses in an italian town.

More than 1300 electric buses are currently operating in Moscow. No such massive problems have been reported. Perhaps the problem is with the manufacturer of these Italian electric buses?

ALAMO wrote:An average Russian pays 7 cents for kWh. SEVEN CENTS.

Strictly speaking, for 2024, the average cost of kWh in Russia for citizens is 4 rubles. That's about 4.35 cents. I pay 7 cents because I live in the Moscow region, and this is a fairly expensive region in terms of the cost of living.

It is from Statista bro, I don't pay bills in Russia yet to have my own opinion
"average" includes probably energy for business - that can be more expensive
But the 4-5 cent price is even more devastating, being 1/10th of average in Europe.
ONE TENTH.