The Chinese Automotive Industry is Becoming a Market Monopolist

 Vladislav Soloviev, a well-known political scientist and blogger, spoke at a meeting with journalists in Moscow about the prospects of the domestic automotive market and shared his opinion about the coming hegemony of Chinese products on Russian roads.

Referring to data from the Chinese Customs Administration, Vladislav Soloviev spoke about the number of cars that China exported to Russia from January to May of 2023. 287,000 units. In terms of money, this is five times more than in the same period last year. This way, Russia came in first place in terms of the volume of transport supplied. China should say "thank you" for the multiple increases in profits of European companies, which have unanimously left the Russian market due to the sanctions policy of the West.

According to Vladislav Soloviev, this gives a chance not only to the Chinese, but also to the Russian automotive industry. However, there has been no large-scale growth in production in Russia so far. News of the sort: "AvtoVAZ is going to produce Dongfeng cars at the factory in Izhevsk and is attracting investor companies for this project" is not particularly inspiring.

With the support of the government, the Russian automotive industry could have set itself more ambitious goals. However, they are in no particular hurry to modernize production and launch entirely domestic product lines. Apparently, it is easier to buy Chinese cars or, based on the supply of components and spare parts from China, to produce products with Chinese interiors and a domestic plate.

The other news is a bit more optimistic: the assembly of Lada cars on the base of the former Nissan site has started. AvtoVAZ President, Maxim Sokolov, and the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Manturov, attended the ceremony of the factory's launch under the new sign. Employees of the factory boasted that they plan to switch to full-cycle production later in the future.

In other words, Russia is seriously looking to become China's first substitute in the domestic automotive market, but no one is intending to force anything, although the country has all the prerequisites for this. It has its own metal (domestic aluminum production is considered one of the most environmentally friendly in the world) and energy resources that do not cost extra. Why not? On the one hand, the answer to this question is obvious, but on the other hand, it requires a deep system analysis of the entire production industry as a whole.

For some reason, the departure of European companies works exclusively in favor of the Chinese automotive industry, but does not stimulate Russian manufacturers to a proper extent. It is clear that for a long time, the domestic automotive industry has been oppressed by competition from Japanese, Korean, and European concerns. But what prevents us from making a qualitative leap going forward?

At the same time, according to many experts, the prices of Chinese cars cannot be called harmonious with their quality. One clearly does not correspond to the other. Domestic car enthusiasts do not yet have enough experience driving Chinese cars to evaluate their functional and other parameters over a distance of 5, 10, or 15 years. Japanese and European cars of such age, given proper maintenance, work quite well. There is no such certainty about Chinese vehicles.

At the same time, the leaders of the Chinese automotive industry consider our market to be extremely important, as it is, in fact, the first example of a large-scale expansion of cars from the Celestial Empire into another country. In the near future, the comrades promise to start supplying the luxury segment and expand the range of mass-produced cars.

According to Vladislav Soloviev, for some reason the Chinese want our market, but we...not so much. We are making the same mistake again - why produce our own if we have imported goods?