Russia is preparing to revive the Moskvich car brand, but with an electric engine. Some are probably dreaming of conquering foreign markets.
What a sensation only! I do not mean that the Moscow city government has acquired a new asset – the Renault plant in the Russian capital. As early as the end of April, the French automobile concerned decided to withdraw completely from Russia, leaving its two companies to the Russian authorities – the one in Moscow and the AvtoVAZ plants in Togliatti.
Nor do I mean that Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has decided to revive the historic Moskvich brand, which went bankrupt in the early 2000s after the Russian market opened up to many foreign car companies. This marketing campaign by the Moscow mayor perfectly serves the dreams of everything Soviet, everything great, which now embraces a significant part of Russian society and fits perfectly into the general concept of today’s Russia to move forward, looking back.
Utopian projects
For me, the real sensation in Sobyanin’s intentions was that “at first” he would organize the production of classic cars with internal combustion engines, and later electric cars. With this, the Moscow mayor practically admits that the future of the automotive industry is precisely electric mobility. And second, with the replacement of imports, he is raising current Russian projects to a new level – that of utopia.
No, Sobyanin is reluctant to modestly announce, as AvtoVAZ has already done, that it will produce Lada, but without some technical inventions such as the anti-lock braking system (ABS). Nor is he embarrassed to admit that Russian Central Bank analysts are right that Russia – a country at war and suffering heavy international sanctions – can only produce products that are at a lower technological level.
Such industrial provinciality does not suit the mayor of Moscow, he wants a metropolitan scale and technological breakthrough – so they were just words. “I love our great plans,” wrote Mayakovsky, who passionately sang about a country that, in its 70 years of existence, has failed to launch a mass-produced car without foreign technology.
Moskvich and Kamaz will jointly develop an electric car
Sobyanin himself recalls that the plant, which he now takes over from Renault, almost a hundred years ago in the Soviet Union began operations with the production of Ford cars. But no, today Russia does not need Western know-how, because Moskvich and its partner Kamaz, from which the Germans have since withdrawn from Daimler Truck, will manage and organize the production of their electric models – an activity in which the world’s leading automakers are pouring billions.
We can only congratulate Muscovites that a large part of their taxes and the city budget will be spent on this bold, proud and striking project, and will also need huge investments to create the relevant infrastructure (network of charging stations ).
Is the electric Moskvich conquering the world market?
Or maybe the Moscow mayor’s office plans to cover all these costs by exporting electric Moskvichi? For example, China is now dreamed of by all Russian companies that want to replace the dropped imports from the West. It is as if China does not have enough of its own electric car manufacturers.
Or are they preparing for a presence in the countries and regions with fast-growing Tesla sales? Well, in that case, Elon Musk is in trouble! In the fierce competition for technological leadership, he will have to face not only Dmitry Rogozin’s Roscosmos but Sergei Sobyanin’s Moskvich. Woe to Tesla!
