As Kommersant reports, citing its own calculations, in February last year there were 21 major car factories operating in Russia – companies produced both mass and premium models. Of these, ten assembly sites were controlled by car manufacturers from countries later recognized by Russian authorities as unfriendly. Another six, including AVTOVAZ and Avtotor, assembled cars from foreign manufacturers.
The sanctions introduced last spring led to the halt of virtually all production, including LADA. Soon the production of Russian cars resumed, and the places of foreign players who left our market were taken by domestic investors. But it was only possible to set up machine production in these factories in isolated cases.
Let’s say Avtotor has reoriented from BMW and Korea’s Hyundai, Kia, Genesis to China’s Kaiyi, BAIC and SWM. The former Renault plant now produces domestic Moskvich cars. The company, which previously assembled Mazda cars, now produces JAC pickups under the Sollers brand. But, for example, Volkswagen in Kaluga and Toyota in St. Petersburg, which changed owners of the site, are still at a standstill.