Seven best citations from automotive forum IMAF 2020 in Moscow

Hearing that witty, smart and surprising views on the Russian automotive market produced an ‘uh-huh’ feel in me. In this piece: a selection of best quotes with comments by the author from the International Moscow Automobile Forum held online on December, 8th, under a claimed theme “The automotive industry in times of uncertainty: forecasts and opportunities”.

Vehicle sales: ice age is in the wallets

“In the last 11 years, Russian customers had 2.3–2.4 trillion rubles (annually) to spend on cars and that level didn’t grow,” — Sergey Tselikov, general director at Autostat.

Serge is the first automotive analyst in the nation who bothered to look at the market from this perspective. Knowing that ruble has been steadily and quickly loosing its value since 2012, it becomes clear why every next year Russians buy less and less vehicles.

“I would rather not get exalted by the demand we’re seeing today and hope that it’ll last into the next year. People who abandoned plans of travels (because of covid) are looking to secure their savings ahead of (expected) inflation,” — Alexander Migal, managing director at Kia Motors in Russia.

So, dealers expect another 2014, the year of sharp decline of ruble value that made population rush to dealerships and get rid of their money in exchange for something more concrete — into some thing. Sales exploded in December, every dealer’s stock was empty. Ice age followed.

It’s a logical thing to expect but the question is, if the guys in regulation made their homework back in 2015–2016. Ice age doesn’t necessarily have to happen again.

“Dealers and automakers need to get closer to each other, need more transparency to avoid unnecessary costs,” — Vyacheslav Zubarev, president of the Russian Automobile Dealers Association.

Hmm, times are a-changing? Since car appeared, auto dealers used to value their independence — well, they don’t now, ready to give it away for the sake of higher efficiency. The whole model of vehicle usage is changing, making the old distribution structure outdated — and the use case of Tesla proves that a car maker can operate its own shop network… Do we sense a wave of mergers between automakers and their dealers ahead?

Regulation: warm up and run like you’re electric

“We finally are having stable business environment and stable position of the government, it helps a lot,” — Jan Aichinger, managing director at MAN Truck and Bus, chairman of the AEB Commercial Vehicles Committee.

Is he serious? For years, Western managers criticised Russia for unstable policies.

“I can’t recall if the government ever responded to our demands as fast as it did this year,” — Vyacheslav Zubarev, president of the Russian Automobile Dealers Association.

Wow, the government is finally learning how to cater for business.

“The law on protection and promotion of investments is an absolutely new instrument that came into force in April, 2020. It protects investors from negative legislation changes in manufacturing, land use and subsidies,” — Ilya Skripnikov, partner at EY.

I’m starting to think that the guys in regulation actually have done their homework. Ice age dismissed?

“Governmental support of development of the charging infrastructure is clearly observed. Today, we’ve got a federal law on selling electric power and permission to install charging points in underground garages. I call companies to consider investing in charging networks because we got all the necessary instruments,” — Iya Gordeeva, chairperson at Association for the development of EV, autonomous and connected vehicles and infrastructure AETI.

It’s not only some good news but also another evidence that the 2020 was a special year for electric mobility in Russia.

As to other reasons to think so, EV sales surged two-fold so now there’s an actual fleet of more than 9,000 EVs in the nation compared to less than 5,000 a year before — in spite of the pandemic. It was also a birth year for national electric cargo transport: four auto makers including Drive Electro, Gaz Group, Kamaz and Maz either presented production-ready prototypes or started mass production of battery-electric vehicles.

That’s it for IMAF 2020. The next event is promised to be held offline in Moscow, in August 2021.

If you liked this selection of thoughts, you can visit TU-Automotive to read more stories dedicated to the Russian automotive business. Comments welcomed.