In a few years, most Russians will probably have to walk or only drive junk cars: the country’s new car market is collapsing dramatically. Spare parts are scarce. In the future, cars will be built without safety systems.
Sanctions, material shortages and the withdrawal of almost all international car manufacturers have caused the Russian car market to collapse. According to the Russian business association AEB, sales fell by 83.5 percent to just 24,268 vehicles compared to the previous year.
For comparison: Far fewer cars were sold in the whole of Russia (population: around 144 million people) than VW alone sells in Germany each month; in May there were around 38,000 vehicles. The EU market itself is in a severe sales crisis. The volume of the Russian market now roughly corresponds to that achieved in Germany by Opel and Skoda together.
The minus at the German carmaker VW, which has been shutting down its production in Russia since March, was 94 percent in May. BMW and Mercedes did not even publish sales figures in Russia for May, reports the dpa news agency. All German manufacturers no longer build and sell cars in Russia. All cooperations – for example between Daimler and the Russian truck manufacturer Kamaz – were ended as a reaction to the war and the sanctions.
The drop in sales affected all car brands represented in Russia, since most production plants are idle due to the lack of spare parts. Industry leader Avtovaz (which builds all Lada models) had to acknowledge an 84 percent decline in sales following its nationalization in May.
The company plans to partially resume production from June 8. Older models should roll off the assembly line, which then only correspond to the Euro 2 emissions standard and do without ABS, airbags or electric windows. Russia’s policy will not only restrict the mobility of the population due to a foreseeable shortage of cars, but will also lead to more accident deaths and worse environmental conditions – European cars meet the Euro 6d emissions standard and thus emit hardly any pollutants.
Technically, that would be a huge step backwards, because the Lada vehicles were actually at a relatively modern level, which roughly corresponded to that of Dacia, due to the cooperation with Renault that has since been discontinued. The Russian government doesn’t seem to care: Russia now even wants to revive an old Soviet car brand, namely the Moskvitch (“Son of Moscow”), probably in order to cut the last ties with the West. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that the Soviet cult car would be produced again in the future.
Regarding Renault’s decision to exit Russia, Sobyanin said: “It is your right, but we cannot allow a collective of many thousands of workers to remain unemployed.” That is why it was decided to take over the plant and start production of passenger cars again to start under the “historic brand Moskvich”. Apparently cheap petrol vehicles and simple electric cars are planned. Even if this works, it won’t be that fast: it takes several years to develop a new car.
According to various media reports, Chinese car companies should therefore help to set up production and develop new models. Whether that will happen remains uncertain, however, because China’s auto industry is primarily looking for new sales markets in the West, where it prefers to sell electric cars – where cooperation with the Russian regime would probably be inconvenient in terms of image.
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