The Russians began to actively import cars with a power of less than 160 hp into the country. after the preferential scrap tax for more powerful cars was cancelled. Since December 2025, the most popular cars imported into Russia under preferential scrap prices have been the Mazda CX-5, Skoda Superb and Kia Seltos. The general director of the analytical agency “Avtostat”, Sergei Tselikov, announced this in his Telegram channel.
“In total, only about 22 thousand such cars were imported. Almost 87% of them (19 thousand) were collected in China,” Tselikov wrote.
According to him, we are talking about cars no older than three years old with left-hand drive, excluding hybrids and electric vehicles. Taking these criteria into account, from December 2025 to April 2026, 8.1 thousand Mazda CX-5, 2 thousand Skoda Superb, 1.6 thousand Kia Seltos, 1.5 thousand Nissan Qashqai and 1.1 thousand Volkswahen Tharu were imported into Russia.
Also popular among Russians are the Hyundai Elantra, Honda Vezel, Skoda Karoq and Kamiq, Mazda CX-50 and CX-30, KIA K3 and K5 and other models that are not affected by the increased recycling fee.
Before this, it became known which cars, specially created by the world’s leading automakers for the Chinese market, are relevant for import to Russia. These include extended versions of the Volkswagen Tiguan and BMW X3.
