Auto industry at the end of the year: life after death began with a Chinese accent

Ekaterina Maksimova

To once again assess the scale of the catastrophe, let us briefly recall the results of last year. In 2021, 1 million 570 new cars rolled off the assembly line of the Russian automotive industry. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the production of passenger cars amounted to 1.34 million units (+8% compared to 2020).

forgive and forget

Since the beginning of 2022 (taking into account the first quarter, when the assembly plants of foreign companies have not yet begun to close one after another), almost 350 thousand cars have been produced in Russia. Fall in nine months - 66%. At the moment, the production of passenger cars declined even more catastrophically. For example, in May, the auto industry almost died (-96.7%).

After all foreigners left the market, three and a half enterprises remained in operation: AvtoVAZ (revenue at the end of 2021 301.2 billion rubles, net profit 1.4 billion rubles), UAZ (45.8 billion, net profit 1.2 billion rubles) and the Tula "Haveil Motor Rus" (55.1 billion rubles, a loss of 4.6 billion). In November, the Moscow Moskvich, sold to the state for a symbolic two rubles, announced the resumption of work: the former Renault began mass production of the Moskvich-3 city crossover. And already in December, Moskvich plans to produce about 600 crossovers. It should be noted that Renault ended its last year in Russia with a profit of 1.3 billion rubles with a revenue of 155 billion rubles.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade, according to the strategy for the development of the automotive industry until 2035, believes that in 2022 about 800 thousand cars will be sold in Russia. But this is unlikely. Otkritie Avto experts predict that the annual sales result will not exceed 670,000 vehicles. And for 11 months of this year, 548.9 thousand cars were sold, which is 61% less than in the same period last year.

Directly AvtoVAZ, as the head of the plant Maxim Sokolov said the day before, plans to introduce at least 220,000 cars to the market by the end of the year. “The production plan is being carried out in accordance with a clear schedule . AvtoVAZ continues to actively work on the resumption of the production of Vesta, Largus, as well as to develop a number of new projects,” said Maxim Sokolov, General Director of the enterprise.

AvtoVAZ is littered with shortages

Not a bad plan for the crisis period (although 150,000 units less than last year), but the chairman of the trade union committee of the PPO workers of JSC AvtoVAZ, Unity, Leonid Emshanov , doubts its feasibility.

“The fact that there are plans is all nonsense. Theory. But in practice, the entire AvtoVAZ is now packed with shortages. If someone thinks that this is already a marketable car and is ready for sale, then no. In fact, these are semi-finished products - somewhere there are no headlights, somewhere there are glasses. And they report to the authorities that the release has been arranged, ”Leonid Emshanov confirmed to Novye Izvestia.

He clarified that now only two assembly lines are operating at the plant - Niva and Lada Granta. All other lines are stopped. 10-15% of the many thousands of employees are without work, including those who provided the assembly of LADA Vesta (Izhevsk).

“Also, the employees of the Largus and X-Ray production line are idle. Some of the workers were able to load onto the lines that now provide the production of Niva and Grants. They were scattered around the assembly shops: where is the coloring, where is the assembly. Still, even those workers who are involved are regularly sent to idle time, because there are not enough components, and an excessive number of workers are expelled. Among the week, 1-2 days are days off,” adds trade union leader Leonid Emshanov.

However, earlier the head of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, said that at the end of 2023, AvtoVAZ, left without the French Renault and components, does not expect to make a profit at the end of the year. But in 2023, as Maxim Sokolov promises, the giant will be profitable.

Economist Andrei Vernikov recalls that the Russian giant's stake on the Renault platform in particular, as well as Russia's stake on Western technologies in general, turned into a collapse of the domestic auto industry. “This is the most expensive thing there is - the development of our own platforms. Most of the components came from different countries, so yes, it will be very difficult,” says economist Vernikov. He also notes that the sharp decline in the production of machinery pulls down the chain of production in related industries - steel, in the first place.

Doctor of Economics, Professor of the Department of State and Municipal Finance of the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanova Yulia Finogenova believes that high-tech companies that left Russia cannot be quickly replaced:

“We must state with regret that so far there is no replacement. And the question is how quickly we can replace Western technologies with Russian ones. Many of them cannot be done on the knee in a few months, their development takes years and huge investments. There is neither time nor huge investments yet. Therefore, the production process will be simplified”, - said Yulia Finogenova.

The economist also doubts that in a crisis, when GDP falls, we can talk about serious options for domestic financing of the industry.

Will we be left without cars?

The head of the press service of the analytical agency "AUTOSTAT" Azat Timerkhanov notes that with a sharp drop in domestic production, parallel imports are gaining popularity.

“There are more and more cars that were not officially delivered to Russia before. Looking ahead, there will be more Chinese brands. More Iranian cars are going to be delivered next year. Maybe even start making them here. Not everything is as sad for consumers as it may seem”, - Azat Timerkhanov is sure.

Otkritie Avto notes that the share of parallel, according to various estimates, is already 5-6% of the market and will continue to grow.

By the end of the year, which is predictable, the composition of the top models has also changed, but the leadership is still with the domestic AvtoVAZ.

“The Lada brand, despite the fact that it has been producing only three models for several months, continues to increase its market share. <…>. And more than half of the auto giant's sales are provided by Lada Granta," Otkritie Avto experts say.

The second place, which was occupied by Renault a year ago, at the end of the year went to the Chinese Haval. “At the same time, according to the most popular model of the Chinese brand and at the same time the best-selling foreign car in our market - Haval Jolion - business volumes have slightly decreased. According to a number of auto retailers, first of all, satisfying the demand of car sharing companies and a number of taxi companies, transactions with individuals were extended for future periods”, - the experts specify.

Next in popularity, "Europeans" were replaced by Geely and another Chinese brand - Chery.

But sales of Western or Japanese brands have declined markedly. By the end of November alone, it was not possible to sell at least a thousand cars. “ This is not surprising. There are fewer and fewer cars of such brands, and “Chinese” are being placed in their salons, showrooms are being reformatted for used cars, or they are being closed altogether. In addition, more than 20 mass brands sold less than 100 cars in a month and almost disappeared from our official market,” Otkritie Avto summed up.