Russian cars sales plunged by around two-thirds in March as sanctions were imposed over the attack on Ukraine, and many international auto companies joined a boycott of Russia, leaving buyers provoking sparse showrooms. Last month, new automobiles sales plummeted sixty-three percent compared to March 2021, the biggest downfall since a countrywide Coronavirus lockdown in April 2020, the Association of European Business (AEB) said Wednesday.
Russian cars sales dropped by two-thirds in March as the Ukraine invasion is in progress. In return, western countries slapped Russia with sanctions. Last month, only fifty-five thousand new cars & light commercial vehicles were sold in Russia, a plummet of 63% from March 2021. pic.twitter.com/lzuUuPHqvZ
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According to the AEB statistics released Wednesday, only fifty-five thousand new cars, including light commercial vehicles, were sold last month in Russia, down sixty-three percent from March last year. All automobiles brands, Asian, American, and European, suffered losses, but Volkswagen was the hardest hit among big sellers, as its sales plunged by seventy-four percent, followed by the Škoda brand and Toyota (TM).
Association statistics revealed that overall sales slumped in February. The latest downfall also hit Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus, as its sale collapsed by ninety-one percent. Porsche’s sales saw its sales plummet by seventy-three percent. Western automakers ran for the exit following the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. In March, Volkswagen and Toyota announced stopping production and exports to Russia.
An Opening for Chinese Automobiles Makers?
Moreover, according to the Russian car market analytics website Autostat, the collapse of the Russian currency pushed the average price of a new car in the country up by between thirty-five percent and forty-five percent in March. So, the Russian government Russia threatens to stop the gas Supply if not Paid in Rubles. However, splashing out on a new car will possibly drop low on the list of priorities in Russia. Since the attack, annual inflation in Russia rushed to approximately sixteen percent.
Source: Web
Domestic car models such as AvtoVAZ-owned Lada could stand to benefit from the absence of foreign automobiles competition. However, sanctions scrambled supply chains, leading to a severe spare parts shortage. As a result, Lada brought forward a firm-wide summer vacation to April and announced that it would move to a four-day week for three months from June in an effort to save jobs of over forty thousand workers. The company further announced that it is designing new versions of many Lada car models to be less dependent on imported vehicle parts.
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