Sollers and Chery are negotiating about the joint production of cars

Sollers Auto and the Chinese automaker Chery Automobile are negotiating about a large-scale partnership in Russia, which includes not only the production of cars at the facilities of the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant, but also the development of new technologies in the field of electric transport, promising modules and materials for the automotive industry. This was reported in the press service of Sollers Auto, by adding that it is planned to fix the specific parameters of the joint project by mid-2022. Meanwhile, in January of 2022, Chery Automobiles Rus, which is the official distributor of Chery and EXEED cars in our country, received a loan from Sberbank in the amount of 980 million rubles.

The company intends to use the received funds to support the dealer network in Russia, expand its staff and develop new business lines. In turn, Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant announced earlier the completion of a comprehensive three-year restructuring program. Restructuring is necessary to create a partnership between UAZ and a global automaker, neither UAZ nor Sollers alone can cope with the investment burden that arises when creating a new model line. It is assumed that the foreign partner will bring its own platform for the production of cars under its own brand and under the UAZ brand. At the same time, the plant will continue to assemble its own models, as it does now.

The creation of the partnership is planned for 2022, but information about its potential participants is not disclosed. Recall that currently the Chery brand is represented in the Russian market by crossovers Tiggo 4, Tiggo 7 Pro, Tiggo 8 and Tiggo 8 Pro. At the end of 2021, Russian dealers of Chery sold 37,118 vehicles, which is 3.2 times higher than in the previous year. As a result, the market share of the brand was about 2.2% against 0.7% a year before, according to the AEB.