The Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant froze a project to produce an electrified SUV based on the UAZ Hunter due to the political situation and sanctions. Gazeta.Ru was informed by the official representative of Sollers (owns UAZ).
Recall that the Czech company MW Motors planned to sell a Russian SUV under the Spartan brand, built on the basis of the classic UAZ, throughout Europe. Sollers did not specify how many electric UAZs they managed to produce in pilot mode and whether the plant plans to implement the idea of electrifying off-road vehicles on its own. Previously, a pilot lot of electric vehicles was planned to be produced at UAZ in February 2022. In addition, the experience of building an electric Hunter at the plant was going to be extended to the entire UAZ model range, including the Patriot SUV and the Profi family of commercial vehicles.
From a technical point of view, the transformation of the UAZ Hunter into an electric vehicle was reduced to replacing the ZMZ gasoline engine with a 120 kW electric engine and installing three traction batteries. Two of them were mounted in place of the standard Hunter gas tanks, and another one was placed in the luggage compartment. At the same time, the five-speed transmission remained at the same place, as well as the chassis elements.