For a country that has a pivotal position in the world, Russia's auto industry is really a bit of a cold one.
Author: Liang Zhihao
With the increasingly complicated situation in Russia and Ukraine, Western countries and enterprises have "taken sides" and introduced a series of sanctions against Russia, including a large number of car brands.
In addition to the fact that some brands have officially stopped production activities at their factories in Russia, many car companies have announced that they will stop exporting new cars and auto parts to Russia. According to Russian media reports, if western sanctions continue, in two months russia will not only have no cars to sell, but also parts and consumables may not be able to support the maintenance of existing vehicles.
Toyota and Volkswagen have called off production
On March 3, volkswagen group issued a statement on Twitter, saying that in view of the russian-Ukrainian conflict, volkswagen group has decided to stop the production of new cars at two major russian plants until further notice, while the import car business will also be stopped.
In addition, taking into account the livelihood of the plant's employees, the Volkswagen Group has also promised to provide short-term compensation to the affected employees.
It is understood that at present, volkswagen group has two major factories in Russia, one is the Kaluga plant, and the other is the Nizhny Novgorod plant. The Kaluga plant began producing new cars for the Volkswagen Group in 2006, and is currently producing Volkswagen Polo, Volkswagen Tiguan, Skoda Jingrui and other models, and is also responsible for assembling high-end models such as audi Q7 and Q8.
The Kaluga plant produced 118,000 units a year last year and employs 4,000 people. The main business of the Nizhny Novgorod plant is the production of some Skoda brand models and Taos of Volkswagen SUV models in assembled form. At the same time, since the import car business will also be stopped at the same time, it also means that high-end brands such as Audi, Porsche, Bentley and other models will also be discontinued in the Russian market.
In addition to the Volkswagen Group, Toyota also recently announced that it will stop production at its St. Petersburg plant, citing the "difficulty in obtaining parts supply." It is reported that Toyota's St. Petersburg plant is mainly responsible for the production of Camry and RAV4 Rongfang models, with an annual output of about 80,000 vehicles, but it is mainly sold to the Local Market in Russia.
At the same time, like Volkswagen, Toyota also announced that it will stop exporting new cars to the Russian market, and will temporarily stop selling new cars in Russia after the existing inventory is empty.
Is it really difficult to "accept the name"?
The Volkswagen Group sold more than 210,000 new cars in the Russian market last year, accounting for 2.4% of its global sales, the data showed. Therefore, stopping business in Russia is actually a big loss for Volkswagen.
In addition to Volkswagen and Toyota, BMW Group, Ford Group, Volvo Trucks and Mercedes-Benz Group have all announced that they will stop production at local factories in Russia. Honda, Nissan and General Motors announced that they would stop exporting cars to Russia, while Volvo Cars and Hyundai Motor announced that they would stop delivering new cars to dealers. Even THE DELLANTIS Group, which has little presence in the Russian market, has announced the establishment of a task force to comply with sanctions imposed by the countries where its major brands belong.
Of course, in addition to some brands "dare" to shout that they just want to protest against Russia, some brands say that their suspension of production is not due to "political factors". For example, Hyundai Group, Russia's highest-selling foreign brand, like Toyota, issued a statement after announcing that it would suspend production at its factory in St. Petersburg, saying that the suspension of production was only due to supply chain disruptions and had nothing to do with the situation in Russia and Ukraine.
Objectively speaking, although Ukraine and Russia are far from being automobile powers, at the moment of industrial globalization, these two countries under the conflict can affect the automobile industry everywhere. For example, the world's largest manufacturer of automotive wiring harnesses, German LEONI, has a layout factory in Ukraine and Russia, and as the two countries fall into war, the global automotive wiring harnesses will inevitably fall into a state of large shortage of goods. At the same time, Ukraine is also a large producer of rare gases that must be used in the production of semiconductor chips, in other words, the war is bound to have another impact on the global chip supply.
It is true that this kind of concerted action is indeed difficult not to make people think, and subjective factors must have the upper hand. After all, Great Wall Motors, which also has factories in Russia and is highly sought after by local consumers, and Chery Automobile, which exports a large number of new cars to the Russian market all year round, do not have "impatient" to say that they have encountered production difficulties.
Nothing to resist
In the face of this blatant suppression, Russia can only resign itself to it. Due to the weak foundation of its own civilian automobile industry and its own domestic demand for new cars, the Russian market is extremely dependent on "joint venture brands" and imported cars.
Although they also have their own "independent brands", such as the familiar Lada, Watts (UAZ), GAZ, etc., of which Lada is the highest-selling brand in the Russian market, but Lada is mainly for the low-cost car market, and the models they produce are really difficult to elegance, and Gass and Watts either focus on the commercial vehicle market, or the technology is old and focuses on the non-mainstream off-road vehicle market.
To put it ruthlessly, russia's auto industry is a bit too cold for a country that has a pivotal position in the world.
Until now, in fact, there are still many people who have a scornful attitude towards our own brands, as well as various sneers at the country's new energy vehicle strategy, and even think that as long as they have joint venture brands, they do not need to go to great lengths to develop their own brands. And now that We have learned from Russia, I wonder how these people will feel? If one day we are also "enemies on our backs", as an ordinary person, I don't want to spend money to buy "industrial garbage" as a means of transportation.
(Some image source network)
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