Five years worth a billion: the big problems of the Russian car industry

The domestic auto industry is going through a difficult time. The flight of leading Western partners from the country and the lack of their own production of car parts forced many factories to simply shut down or at least slow down sharply. And how to be in this situation? Is there a way out? Are growth points possible today? Dmitry GARONIN, Executive Director of the Association of Automotive Engineers, answered these and other questions on the AvtoVzglyad portal.

– Dmitry Lvovich, now the Russian authorities and business place a special interest in the Chinese auto industry. How do you think this can be explained? Does this new policy pose a threat to Russian producers?

– A holy place is never empty. After all, we are one of the largest countries by population in Eurasia. And we have a big market. Therefore everything is clear. The Europeans left, the Chinese came. They understand that Russians remain a mobile nation, that is, they will travel. Cars are needed. As for the “Chinese threat”, there is none. Now there is a situation where you just need to fill the market. Because Western companies quickly left. And the question has not disappeared. So a stream of cars from China poured into us.

– What can you say about another development vector: total electrification? Isn’t this a dead end in the development of the global auto industry in general and the Russian one in particular? Will electric cars save Russia?

“Electric vehicles have a long history. If we go back a hundred years in time, we will see that the first cars that appeared then were simply electric. And if we focus on global trends, we can say: electrification only occurs where the population density is large enough. For example in Europe. Only then is the number of chargers and electric vehicles justified. In Russia it is slightly different. I don’t think an electric car is a panacea for the whole country, but it is for big cities. At the moment, however, I can hardly imagine an electric car anywhere outside the Urals or in Siberia. There are other distances and ways of living. Electric transport will only get along in megacities.

– And what about high-rise buildings, which are now being actively erected in large cities. There are not enough parking spaces for everyone. And yes, maybe it’s not enough.

– Enough space for everyone. A good example of this is China. Placing charging stations at parking spaces is not that difficult. The biggest problem is infrastructure costs.

Investments in EZS can be quite large. And the cost of charging depends on this. In Beijing, for example, “filling up” an electric car is already more expensive than filling up a petrol tank.

– Tell me, how much easier or more difficult is it to design electric vehicles compared to traditional cars?

– Making a completely new electric car is just as difficult as making a car with a known engine. But if you recreate the finished body for an electric car, then it’s much easier, if only because the problems with the steering suspension and other things have already been solved. Placing a traction battery is also not a question, because you do not have to install parts such as an engine, an exhaust system and a petrol tank. There are many spaces. Here Tesla is a difficult project. Because it was originally designed as a 100% electric car.

Here we note that all leading car manufacturers followed the same path. Think for example of Volkswagen e-Golf or Opel Corsa-e. AVTOVAZ also said its word by presenting LADA Ellada. Togliatti residents put an innovative “filling” in the serial body of “Kalina”

– And how long can it take for a purely domestic development of a passenger car with a traditional engine (platform, engines, transmissions) to meet all modern requirements?

– World practice shows that the cost of creating a car “cart” is similar for many manufacturers. It usually takes five years and costs about a billion dollars.

– But who is designing all this for us? Have we lost engineering school?

– I assure you that there are qualified specialists in our factories. For example, their training takes place in Nizhny Novgorod. So the same GAZ will certainly not remain without young talents. There is also own know-how. For example, Russian specialists fully developed the driver’s seat of an electric bus and successfully put it into production.

– Why not start by copying both Western and Chinese developments?

– It is possible, because the same Chinese or Koreans did it. As a result, they went the way that European companies went much faster. But simple copying is not enough. We need to call in our experts. And the next versions of the units are already being made with their own know-how. This ensures technological progress. So our auto industry will move forward.

– What do you think, will Russian car factories make the designs of their cars cheaper? That is, we reduce the resource, but we save?

– Having a component base and our own production will ultimately make the car cheaper for the end buyer. Now we import a lot of stuff from abroad. And it’s not easy to deliver it, and it takes more time. That’s why localization is important. Then the price of new domestic cars will be lower. But we need time to implement our own developments and revive component production. But only in this case will we be able to secure technological sovereignty for ourselves and not be afraid that the same Chinese will “eat” us …

– A holy place is never empty. After all, we are one of the largest countries by population in Eurasia. And we have a huge market. Therefore everything is clear. The Europeans left, the Chinese came. They understand that Russians remain a mobile nation, that is, they will travel. Cars are needed. As for the “Chinese threat”, there is none. Now there is a situation where you just need to fill the market. Because Western companies quickly left. And the question has not disappeared. So a stream of cars from China poured into us.