2022-09-26 23:23:33
Sollers Auto is discussing with Mazda the cessation of car production in Vladivostok and the purchase by Sollers of Mazda’s stake in a joint venture (JV), the Russian company said on September 26. The talks concern the parameters of the exit from the project of the Japanese company, a representative of Sollers Auto explained to Vedomosti. At the same time, the company has already developed a plan to restart the plant for the production of cars of other brands and is currently finalizing negotiations on this issue, the Sollers Auto report says. A spokesman for the company declined to provide details.
Vedomosti sent a request to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Mazda’s intention to pull out of the project with Sollers Auto is due to the fact that disruptions in the supply chain of components that have arisen since the start of SVO in Ukraine make it difficult to resume work, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei wrote on September 25.
The revenue of the joint venture in 2021 increased by 20% year-on-year to 53.6 billion rubles, operating profit – 6 times to 1.06 billion rubles, net profit – from 11 million to 997 million rubles, follows from the presentation to the IFRS report for the past year of the Russian group. Mazda sales in the Russian market last year amounted to 28,900 vehicles (+6.5% yoy). According to the results of 2021, Sollers received 700 million rubles from a joint venture with a Japanese company. dividends.
JV “Mazda Sollers” was established in 2012 by the companies of the same name on a parity basis. The site with a design capacity of 50,000 vehicles per year is located in Vladivostok. Last year, about 30,000 cars were produced on it – these are the Mazda CX-5 and Mazda CX-9 crossovers, the Mazda 6 sedan. Later, at the end of 2018, Sollers and Mazda opened the production of Skyactiv-G engines with a volume of 2 l. Investments in the project amounted to 3 billion rubles, and all assembled engines were supplied to Japanese Mazda plants.
The equipment of the engine plant will be transported to the enterprises of Sollers Auto in the European part of the Russian Federation, a company representative explained to Vedomosti. Thus, the company will no longer produce engines in Vladivostok.
The enterprises of the Mazda Sollers JV suspended the production of cars in May 2022. This was preceded by a message from Sollers that due to the SVO in Ukraine there are difficulties with the supply of imported components, and therefore the supply of components to joint ventures with Ford and Mazda was suspended.
Sollers decided to adapt the site of the joint venture with the American Ford in the Alabuga special economic zone (Elabuga, Tatarstan) for the production of Chinese JAC commercial vehicles (Vedomosti wrote about this on September 8). In particular, at the EEF-2022, the Russian automaker signed an agreement with the Ministry of Industry and Trade on amending its special investment contract. They involve the release of a new line of light commercial vehicles to replace the Ford Transit under its own Sollers Auto brand with a gross weight of 2.5 to 4.5 tons.
Then the sources of Vedomosti said that a car similar in weight and size to the Ford Transit and Mercedes Sprinter, which will be produced at the Sollers Ford plant, is the JAC Sunray. The cabover van Sollers will probably be produced on the basis of the JAC-N25 / 35 model, which is similar in appearance and characteristics to the well-known Hyundai Porter LCV on the Russian market, one of the sources said.
In addition, Sollers has a localization project with the Chinese Chery Automobile. The production of cars of this brand was supposed to be localized at the UAZ site in Ulyanovsk. But at the end of August 2022, Chery decided to abandon this idea (Vedomosti wrote about it on August 26) because UAZ was included in the EU sanctions list in early June.
The Mazda Sollers car assembly plant can be roughly estimated at 200-220 million euros, says Sergey Burgazliev, an independent automotive industry consultant. According to him, almost any Mazda 6 and Mazda CX-5 size cars can be assembled on it. If a suitable replacement is selected, special investments in tooling for new production will not be required, the expert believes.
The site of the joint venture in Vladivostok is easy to convert to the production of other cars, agrees Sergey Udalov, executive director of Avtostat. But the removal of assembled cars from there in the current conditions can be complicated, the expert believes. Previously, Sollers received a subsidy for the transportation of cars from the Far East in the amount of about 500-700 million rubles. in year. It is very likely that this plant will be idle for some time after Mazda leaves, Udalov notes.
It is not a fact that the joint venture site will be immediately occupied, agrees Vladimir Bespalov, an expert on the automotive market. According to him, the most obvious option for Sollers is to involve one of the Chinese automakers. “But they now have a choice of where to settle in Russia, especially after the decision Toyota close the plant in St. Petersburg,” he argues. Factory “Mazda” Sollers“cannot work exclusively for the Far East, where competition from used cars from Japan is strong, Bespalov notes. Therefore, the issue of transporting cars to the central part of Russia needs to be worked out, he concludes.
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