The Ministry of Industry and Trade will simplify the requirements for the safety of Russian cars

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is going to reduce the mandatory safety requirements for cars produced by Russian car factories. The Ministry is developing a new technical regulation "On the safety of vehicles produced in a special period", which is aimed "exclusively at supporting Russian automotive enterprises, which are subject to restrictions and which are experiencing difficulties with the supply of components." In particular, reduced requirements will allow the use of auto components imported as a part of parallel imports.

Russian car factories support actively the transition to softer requirements for equipping manufactured cars. This was announced at AVTOVAZ, KAMAZ, UAZ and GAZ Group. “This decision will allow us to continue the production of cars in the face of a shortage of a number of imported components, to ensure the loading of conveyors and the employment of personnel,” says Sergey Ilyinsky, official representative of AVTOVAZ. According to him, in June and July the plant plans to start the production of several modifications with a minimum content of foreign components. “There are a lot of sparsely populated and hard-to-reach areas in our country, where the mandatory availability of equipment that meets the Euro-5 standard is not always justified,” says Oleg Afanasiev, KAMAZ official representative.

“This equipment is difficult to keep and consumers tend to try to get rid of Euro-5 elements to make it more reliable.” Simplified KAMAZ trucks comply with Euro-2 emission standards, while KAMAZ continues to produce Euro-5 trucks. The press service of the GAZ Group said that they do not plan to abandon completely the production of full-fledged equipment for their vehicles, even if the minimum requirements for them are reduced. After switching to a new component base, UAZ also expects to return to the production of vehicles that meet current technical requirements. The most critical components of the vehicle, due to which it is necessary to temporarily change the current standards, are the fuel system, active and passive safety elements and other electronics - up to parking sensors, says Sergey Burgazliev, an independent automotive industry consultant.

“The options for action in the current situation are either to look quickly for analogues, including in China, or to simplify the technical regulations. In this case, it turns out that the Russian auto industry is returning to the requirements that were in force 15 years ago. A temporary order will have to be introduced for at least a year - it is unlikely that it will be possible to localize alternative components faster,” the expert sums up.