AvtoVAZ from Monday will resume production of Lada Vesta cars at the plant in Togliatti in two shifts. Now the Lada model range consists of four positions – Vesta, Largus, Granta and Niva. Sales of brand cars fell by half in 2022. In November, AvtoVAZ said that demand had grown by almost 100% this year. Does Vesta have competitors?
It looks like AvtoVAZ intends to increase production, despite some problems. Just a month ago, AvtoVAZ President Maxim Sokolov spoke about blocking payments in foreign banks.
According to the top manager, the tightening of sanctions led to the fact that AvtoVAZ transactions began to be canceled, and not only in so-called unfriendly countries. As a result, foreign suppliers and other partners refuse to cooperate with the Russian auto industry.
How dependent is Vesta on supplies from abroad? Editor-in-Chief of the magazine “Behind the Wheel” Maxim Kadakov says:
Maxim Kadakov editor-in-chief of the magazine “Behind the Wheel”
Maxim Kadakov notes that the demand for Vesta is “crazy.” But buying a car is not so easy. Especially at the recommended factory price of 1.2 million rubles for the basic package.
Vesta is actively promoted. Recently AvtoVAZ launched program for compensation of interest rates on loans for the purchase of this model and allocated about 600 million rubles for it. A loan on preferential terms can be obtained from a bank owned by the Auto Finance company. Thus, AvtoVAZ wants to support demand against the backdrop of the Central Bank’s high key rate of 15% per annum. The terms of the program are as follows: loan rate from 7.9% per annum with life insurance and from 9.9% per annum without insurance.
Against the backdrop of problems with foreign partners, the decision to produce the Lada Vesta in two shifts is more political than economically feasible, says auto expert Alexey Kovanov:
Alexey Kovanov auto expert
Question: will the “shortage” increase this time with the launch of the second shift, given Vesta’s rather high level of “import substitution”?
Be that as it may, demand is expected, because Vesta has practically no direct price competitors. You can recall a minimal number of Iranian cars, a little from India and other countries of Southeast Asia, but this is practically within the margin of error. Everything that is sold more or less officially costs at least several hundred thousand more. And if dealers do not make huge markups, then, experts say, there is a chance of selling out all Vestas produced.
At the beginning of November, AvtoVAZ reported about 33 thousand cars sold of this brand in 10 months of 2023. In March, the company said that it plans to produce about 100 thousand Lada Vesta this year if there is demand. According to Autostat, at the beginning of the year almost 600 thousand Vestas were driving on Russian roads.
2023-12-09 18:16:45
#Russians #Vesta
