Russia's AvtoVAZ Suffers From The Crisis

Production plans are reduced by 40% due to collapsing sales.

Russia's largest automaker AvtoVAZ has revised its production plans for 2025 toward a sharp reduction. According to the company's president Maksim Sokolov, the output of Lada cars will amount to just over 300 thousand units, including the new Lada Iskra model, which will be assembled at the St. Petersburg car plant, writes The Moscow Times.

In November 2024, the AvtoVAZ board of directors initially approved a production plan of 500 thousand cars for 2025. In June, Sokolov predicted a 20-25 percent drop in sales, to 367,000 cars. The current forecast assumes a 40 percent reduction.

"Taking into account the launch of the plant in St. Petersburg, we will definitely produce more than 300 thousand cars. How much more - it will become clear closer to the end of the year. Now the market has started to "rock", so we can expect plus or minus 10% of this figure. More precisely, we can produce as many as we want. The important thing is to balance with sales," Sokolov explained.

According to Avtostat, Lada sales for the first eight months of 2025 fell by 24.9% to 211.3 thousand cars. Amid the decline, the company was forced to introduce a four-day working week for six months.

In general, in the first half of 2025, 530.4 thousand new cars were sold in Russia, and including trucks and buses - 601.8 thousand. This is 28% less than in the same period last year. Sales of passenger cars fell by 26%, buses - by almost 60%, heavy trucks - by 55.9%.

According to Sokolov, the decline is due to a number of negative factors: the high key rate of the Central Bank, tightening of conditions for car loans and dumping by Chinese cars massively imported into the country in 2024.

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail [email protected]