Two firms decided to sell SAIPA cars from Iran in Russia. It is reported by AUTONEWS.
In February 2023, the Belarusian company Lucky Carensi announced the conclusion of an agreement on the distribution of Iranian SAIPA cars in Russia and Belarus.
At the end of March 2023, the Russian company Best Motors was introduced as a SAIPA distributor. Both statements are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive.
At the same time, none of the parties has exclusive rights to SAIPA in Russia and each is ready to cooperate with dealers and supply them with Iranian cars.
Each company must sell 45,000 cars in Russia (Lucky Carensi in Russia and Belarus) in three years. We are talking about 10 thousand in 2023, 15 thousand in 2024 and 20 thousand in 2025.
According to Lucky Carensi, the company has signed an exclusive agreement with SAIPA to receive OTTS. Tests are planned to be carried out in Belarus.
While the company is waiting for technical documentation from Iran, from which it will become clear which tests need to be done in Belarus or Russia, and which ones have already been carried out in Iran and can be credited. This will determine the cost of obtaining OTTS.
Best Motors said they were not aware of the exclusive rights to Lucky Carensi. However, they admitted that they did not see the papers signed by another distributor with the Iranians.
According to the director for strategic development of Best Motors Evgenia ChizhovaSAIPA has its own legal entity in Russia, and through it the Iranians have already tried to get OTTS on their own, but faced some difficulties.
Best Motors is ready to help in obtaining OTTS through NAMI, but this will require serious expenses. The company also expressed its readiness to cooperate with Lucky Carensi if it is the Belarusian structure that receives OTTS.
Best Motors is confident that they will have more chances to develop SAIPA distribution in Russia. Lucky Carensi is banking on its longstanding contacts with Iranian automakers.
As the director of Lucky Carency assured Sergei Vachinsky, Iranian SAIPA will be able to produce any required number of cars for Russia. He compared the scale of production with the Togliatti AvtoVAZ.
The future distributor believes that the capacity of the plant in Tehran will be enough for the domestic market, and for Russia and Belarus.
Both distributors are not going to stop at the import of Iranian cars alone. Best Motors is now studying the possibility of organizing the assembly of SAIPA machines at the facilities of one of the idle automobile production facilities in St. Petersburg.
Lucky Carensi is also preparing for local assembly, but already in Belarus, at the Unison plant, which has experience in assembling Iranian Iran Khodro machines.
The prices given in Lucky Carensi (13-22 thousand dollars) are close to those price guidelines given in Best Motors. According to their estimates, the Saina compact sedan, Quik hatchback and Shahin flagship sedan should cost from 1 to 1.7 million rubles.
Both distributors promise to name the final cost of the cars after the logistics are established and the exact cost of delivering the cars from Iran to Russia becomes clear.
Businessman Ararat Mardoyan, whose company already transports parallel import vehicles from Europe via Iran to Russia, believes there are several logistics options. The first is by ferry across the Caspian Sea. But Iran does not have its own ferries, and the Russian ones are very outdated.
The expert named another way – the land route through Armenia and Georgia. However, the throughput capacity of the customs point in Upper Lars is limited, the car transporter can stand in line for 20 days.
In his opinion, if distributors start using all channels simultaneously, then even in this case it will be impossible to deliver 20,000 cars to Russia in 2023.
