Assembling a car according to the detailed enclosed instructions from parts carefully stamped and painted in distant lands is a simple and by no means very intellectual affair. Kind of like an adult DIY kit.
On the other hand, it is also not the most honorable occupation to turn the simplest knots into something that looks like a passenger car, devoid of modern engineering units and electronic security systems. And to mention the proud word “automotive industry”, neither the first nor the second speak. These are just fragments of a collapsed system, although far from ideal and inefficient, but more or less integral.
The difficult situation in which our economy finds itself does not allow the enterprises of the industry to remain complacent and rely on a foreign uncle in everything. The way we’ve blown everything we could and knew how to do in 30 years is truly grandiose. We had to realize the full depth of our own hollowing out, bordering on criminal passivity, as the uncles collected their belongings and at one point threw them in all directions, leaving useless factories and leaving us no manufacturing secrets.
A wise man learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others, and a fool learns nothing at all. Until now, unfortunately, a significant part of the fragments of our automotive industry can be safely attributed to the third category. With tenacity worthy of better use, they try to replace one uncle with another and still don’t care.
In the context of the growing confrontation with the conditional West, such a policy will lead, if not to another collapse, then to stagnation and a slide back into the last century – definitively. In fact, we can already see that today. There are many excuses for infantile behavior – and we do not have modern technologies and qualified personnel. However, not everyone was plunged into an atmosphere of despondency.
The Kaliningrad company “Avtotor”, which today is engaged in the production of cars based on a welded and painted body with partial localization of components, does not think exclusively of itself in this paradigm.
Although, by the way, the fact that the company’s management managed to maintain production without any government support and the same qualified personnel, having loaded its capabilities with the assembly of three brands of Chinese cars at once, is worthy of respect. Especially when you consider that in today’s harsh times, the cars of at least one of them are quite a budget option for both corporate parks and ordinary citizens. However, the plans of the Kaliningraders are much bolder.
Their task for the near future is to create a full cycle of technologically independent car production, including the production of their own components. In other words, the current Chinese cars, which are now registered here, will become completely Russian in the foreseeable future. And their production in the volumes needed by both the enterprise and the consumer will not stop, even if for some reason dear comrades from the PRC suddenly make us a pen (and this possibility can no longer be ignored).
To realize their ambitions, the company’s management will build 12 factories from scratch. It is intended to cover the broadest areas of activity: casting and metalworking, and batteries with electric motors, and car bodies, and electronics, and printed circuit boards, and air conditioning systems, and automotive plastics. All this considerable economy was supposed to be launched literally tomorrow – in 2024-2025, and the total investment in the super project will be at least 32 billion rubles.
And in our opinion, one can only applaud Avtotor’s desire to go the only right way. But for now, these are all plans, plans, plans, they have yet to be implemented. And on the way from a piece of paper to the appearance of an entrepreneur’s first fully localized car, many ambush awaits.
First, the investment amount. It may not be enough for such a, without exaggeration, grandiose plan. For example, in 2019, Mercedes-Benz invested 13 billion rubles in its only plant near Moscow. And Haval, which in the same year founded its own enterprise and announced further localization of production in Russia, planned to spend 42.4 billion rubles for this. But perhaps Avtotor is not counting on any help and preferences from the state here.
Secondly, it is not always clear where the announced project will lead. For example, 50,000 electric vehicles, which we have promised to produce annually at Avtotor, have strangely turned into electric, in fact four-wheelers in a body.
And no one is safe from such metamorphoses on the thorny path of creating an entire production cluster in Kaliningrad. On the other hand, for a “tasty” price, it is quite realistic to build such a volume of the “new Oka” in Russian megacities. If, again, the state will seriously start creating the right infrastructure for “trains”.
Third, the issues indicated by the nagging of our experts and industry leaders are completely objective. Technologies and highly qualified personnel will have to be obtained somewhere.
But overall the approach is interesting. The main thing is to get into a fight. And, as Vovka said in the Far Far Away Kingdom: “Oh, I wish I could! She would open her whole mouth!
Assembling a car according to the detailed enclosed instructions from parts carefully stamped and painted in distant lands is a simple and by no means very intellectual affair. Kind of like an adult DIY kit.
On the other hand, it is also not the most honorable occupation to turn the simplest knots into something that looks like a passenger car, devoid of modern engineering units and electronic security systems. And to mention the proud word “automotive industry”, neither the first nor the second speak. These are just fragments of a collapsed system, although far from ideal and inefficient, but more or less integral.
The difficult situation in which our economy finds itself does not allow the enterprises of the industry to remain complacent and rely on a foreign uncle in everything. The way we’ve blown everything we could and knew how to do in 30 years is truly grandiose. We had to realize the full depth of our own hollowing out, bordering on criminal passivity, as the uncles collected their belongings and at one point threw them in all directions, leaving useless factories and leaving us no manufacturing secrets.
A wise man learns from his own mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others, and a fool learns nothing at all. Until now, unfortunately, a significant part of the fragments of our automotive industry can be safely attributed to the third category. With tenacity worthy of better use, they try to replace one uncle with another and still don’t care.
In the context of the growing confrontation with the conditional West, such a policy will lead, if not to another collapse, then to stagnation and a slide back into the last century – definitively. In fact, we can already see that today. There are many excuses for infantile behavior – and we do not have modern technologies and qualified personnel. However, not everyone was plunged into an atmosphere of despondency.
The Kaliningrad company “Avtotor”, which today is engaged in the production of cars based on a welded and painted body with partial localization of components, does not think exclusively of itself in this paradigm.
Although, by the way, the fact that the company’s management managed to maintain production without any government support and the same qualified personnel, having loaded its capabilities with the assembly of three brands of Chinese cars at once, is worthy of respect. Especially when you consider that in today’s harsh times, the cars of at least one of them are quite a budget option for both corporate parks and ordinary citizens. However, the plans of the Kaliningraders are much bolder.
Their task for the near future is to create a full cycle of technologically independent car production, including the production of their own components. In other words, the current Chinese cars, which are now registered here, will become completely Russian in the foreseeable future. And their production in the volumes needed by both the enterprise and the consumer will not stop, even if for some reason dear comrades from the PRC suddenly make us a pen (and this possibility can no longer be ignored).
To realize their ambitions, the company’s management will build 12 factories from scratch. It is intended to cover the broadest areas of activity: casting and metalworking, and batteries with electric motors, and car bodies, and electronics, and printed circuit boards, and air conditioning systems, and automotive plastics. All this considerable economy was supposed to be launched literally tomorrow – in 2024-2025, and the total investment in the super project will be at least 32 billion rubles.
And in our opinion, one can only applaud Avtotor’s desire to go the only right way. But for now, these are all plans, plans, plans, they have yet to be implemented. And on the way from a piece of paper to the appearance of an entrepreneur’s first fully localized car, many ambush awaits.
First, the investment amount. It may not be enough for such a, without exaggeration, grandiose plan. For example, in 2019, Mercedes-Benz invested 13 billion rubles in its only plant near Moscow. And Haval, which in the same year founded its own enterprise and announced further localization of production in Russia, planned to spend 42.4 billion rubles for this. But perhaps Avtotor is not counting on any help and preferences from the state here.
Secondly, it is not always clear where the announced project will lead. For example, 50,000 electric vehicles, which we have promised to produce annually at Avtotor, have strangely turned into electric, in fact four-wheelers in a body.
And no one is safe from such metamorphoses on the thorny path of creating an entire production cluster in Kaliningrad. On the other hand, for a “tasty” price, it is quite realistic to build such a volume of the “new Oka” in Russian megacities. If, again, the state will seriously start creating the right infrastructure for “trains”.
Third, the issues indicated by the nagging of our experts and industry leaders are completely objective. Technologies and highly qualified personnel will have to be obtained somewhere.
But overall the approach is interesting. The main thing is to get into a fight. And, as Vovka said in the Far Far Away Kingdom: “Oh, I wish I could! She would open her whole mouth!
Source: Avto Vzglyad
Donald Salinas is an experienced automobile journalist and writer for Div Bracket. He brings his readers the latest news and developments from the world of automobiles, offering a unique and knowledgeable perspective on the latest trends and innovations in the automotive industry.