The Moscow government is confident in a sufficient level of demand for 50,000 Moskvich crossovers planned for production in 2023, the main sales will fall on car sharing, the corporate segment and officials. This was told by the capital’s vice-mayor Maxim Liksutov in an interview with Kommersant.
“There will definitely be a market. The main sales will come from carsharing, individuals and the corporate segment… Many of my friends who work in the Moscow government consider the Moskvich crossover as a car for daily business trips. Given the current market situation, we think that the car will be in demand,” he said.
Liksutov stressed that the Moskvich plant is a guarantee that taxi and car sharing aggregators will have a partner with local production, a service base and the availability of components that can “respond to new business needs.”
The assembly of Moskvich cars began in Moscow at the former Renault plant on November 23. The first new model of the enterprise was the Moskvich 3 crossover. This is a compact crossover equipped with a 1.5-liter gasoline turbo engine with a capacity of 150 hp. with. The appearance of the novelty and its technical characteristics completely repeat the Chinese crossover JAC JS4.
In early December, Moskvich announced the launch of mass production and that it had already produced over 160 Moskvich 3 vehicles. It is expected that approximately 440 more vehicles, including 200 electric vehicles, will be assembled by the end of this year. The cost of the car “Moskvich 3” will be from 1.97 million rubles. The crossover will be presented in five colors: white, black, red, gray and blue. In addition, it became known that the new “Moskvich” will appear in 11 dealerships in Moscow before the end of the year. The list includes Rolf, Avtorus, Major, Rolf Center, Kuntsevo shopping center and others.
The Kremlin called the appearance of a new crossover in the capital’s dealerships “certainly a welcome fact” and welcomed the steps of the Moskvich plant aimed at reducing the deficit in the passenger car market to a minimum.