Russia’s largest vehicle producer AvtoVAZ is planning to make 400,000 vehicles this year with a step-up planned for the second half after the ‘validation of components’.
It says the validation of components follows a move to localize supply with parts ‘delivered by new partners from friendly countries as part of the step-by-step import substitution plan’.
The localization move follows economic sanctions imposed on Russia by Western nations following last year’s military conflict in Ukraine. Major AvtoVAZ shareholder Renault also divested its stake to local interests last year.
As well as testing components, the company is also building stocks to ‘enable non-stop work of production lines in the second half, when AvtoVAZ is going to significantly increase production output’.
AvtoVAZ President Maksim Sokolov said: “I would like to note that three week shutdown should not affect the availability of cars in the dealership network, but ensure additional stock of components required to achieve the production objective of more than 400K cars in 2023”.
AvtoVAZ is preparing to start car production at the former Nissan plant in St Petersburg in the second quarter of this year. The company intends to produce ‘several new Lada brand cars in the popular C and D segments’.
In earlier statements, AvtoVAZ has called for incentives – such as scrappage incentives – for the domestic auto industry. It has also announced its own scrappage program, with trade-ins over eight years old eligible to offset the purchase price of a Lada Granta.
The company says that through 2022 it worked on a ‘step-by-step substitution of imported vehicle components’. This work, it said, has resulted in localization of more than 200 components and is still ongoing in 2023.
