results of seven months – Autoreview

At the beginning of the year, expectations were high: coronavirus restrictions were lifted, manufacturers gradually brought sales to pre-pandemic levels. And then the market was shaken by much more serious problems …

Trucks. For seven months, 21% fewer trucks were sold in Russia than a year earlier – 44.3 thousand. It doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, but one of the reasons is this: when rumors spread that European manufacturers were leaving, buyers began sweeping everything in the parking lots. Thus, Volvo Trucks managed to sell a little more than one and a half thousand trucks, coming out on top among the Big Seven. But what’s the point if the director of Volvo Trucks and Renault Trucks in Russia, Sergey Yavorsky, said goodbye in a video message to a large part of the employees, asking them not to hold a grudge once morest the company? The rest of the “Europeans” are doing no better: Scania sold a little more than a thousand cars, others might not overcome this milestone. Their business has been curtailed or, at best, frozen – which, according to our information, also applies to the Turkish Ford. Mercedes left, MAN left, IVECO left, at the same time leaving the long-term partner IVECO-AMT in Miass…

Who is easy now? Certainly not for KAMAZ – although it has a small drop in numbers. The first two places in the top ten most popular models traditionally belong to the bestsellers of the K3 series with old cabs – these are all-wheel drive trucks 43118 and dump trucks 65115. In third place are Europeanized Kama tractors: KAMAZ-5490 K4 together with the new KAMAZ-54901 K5. As we have already mentioned, in the second half of the year, the last 200 5490 vehicles (50 units per month starting from September) and 619 K5 tractors (12 in August and 150 each in the remaining months) will be assembled from the remnants of imported components. And then they promise to localize the K5 cars.

Meanwhile, KAMAZ is nationalizing and rebranding Cummins engines and ZF gearboxes, which it produces: Cummins ISB6.7 engines (250-310 hp) will be called KAMAZ-667, nine-liter Cummins ISL (340-400 hp) – KAMAZ-689. In turn, the “manual” ZF boxes of Chelny production (9 and 16 steps) are now called ZF KAMA.

The second place in the market following KAMAZ was taken by the Chinese Shacman – sales of these vehicles increased by more than three times, and a hefty four-axle dump truck is in the lead. The rest are also pulling up: in the top ten – Howo, JAC and FAW. At this pace, by the end of the year, the Chinese can fundamentally move not only the “Europeans”, but also our manufacturers! And not only in the heavy class …

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