Speaking to journalists in Tolyatti, Maxim Sokolov made it clear: the successes of the Volzhsky Automobile Plant contrast with the failures of the world’s auto giants. The top manager of Lada recalled that Volkswagen is laying off workers in the heart of the auto industry in Germany, Nissan announced a possible bankruptcy within a year. At the same time, AvtoVAZ is increasing production and developing new models.
Separately, Maxim Sokolov focused on Chinese companies. The top manager of Lada compared them to piranhas, who “arranged a squabble among themselves for our sector.” According to the head of AvtoVAZ, the Russian manufacturer owns only 10% of the market in monetary terms. Maxim Sokolov complained that the introduction of recycling collection has not yet worked.
Photos of Lada Iskra prototypes crashed in crash tests have appeared. An advertising brochure for Lada with a local fashion model was shown in Iran. AvtoVAZ commented on the transition of the Lada Granta to headlights from India
According to the head of AvtoVAZ, Chinese automakers imported about half a million cars into Russia before the tariff increase, and now they are “putting pressure on our market.” However, as soon as these cars are dismantled, it will be possible to “fight openly with the auto industry from China, taking into account the barriers that are reasonably set by customs tariff policy and recycling collection.”
In the future, Maxim Sokolov promised to switch the conveyors to a different speed: we are probably talking about plans to produce a million cars a year. However, the opposite situation is currently happening: in December, AvtoVAZ stopped the assembly of 25 out of 35 modifications of the Lada Vesta, leaving only relatively budget versions in production.
New Russians: premieres of our automobile industry
