Russian analytical agency Autostat has stated that only 55 percent of passenger car and light commercial vehicle production capacity continued to operate in Russia as of March 3.
The Russian automotive industry has a total annual production capacity of about 2.7 million units. In 2021, car factories could not meet demand due to the global semiconductor chip shortage. However, the Russian automotive industry last year showed a positive result for the first time after two years of decline. According to the data from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), 1.4 million cars left Russian assembly lines last year, up by 8.2 percent year on year.
“Soon Russia will face a complete halt in automotive production for a number of reasons - sanctions, logistics, lack of components,” Sergey Udalov, Autostat’s executive director, said. According to Mr. Udalov, the duration of downtime will depend on the duration of the war in Ukraine and how quickly Russia adapts to new realities.