LADA cars can get Chinese automatic transmissions

AVTOVAZ is negotiating with three potential suppliers of automatic transmissions from China. According to the Drom.ru portal, citing its sources, the choice is not only between manufacturers, but also between types of transmissions. At the same time, hydromechanical automatic transmissions have an advantage (there is even an 8-speed gearbox on the list of candidates), but the choice of a variator is not excluded. According to sources at AVTOVAZ, in three years the plant should start the production of 60% of cars with automatic transmissions. Therefore, Chinese gearboxes are planned to be installed in all current models, except for LADA Niva SUVs. A return to the transmissions of the Japanese company Jatco is not expected.

According to the data of AUTOSTAT agency and Electronic Passport JSC, for six months of 2022, 240,165 new cars equipped with automatic transmission (AT) were sold in Russia, which is a record 68.2% of total sales. For comparison, at the end of 2021, the share of “automatic transmissions” was 66.5% of the Russian market. However, if we consider the sales of cars with AT broken down by months, then their largest share was recorded in February of this year - 69.2%. Since then, it began to decline gradually – down to 66.3% in June. Experts of the agency "AUTOSTAT" believe that the share of "automatic transmission" will continue to fall in the coming months, as the supply of cars of European, Japanese and American brands to our market is suspended.

At the same time, LADA cars are still produced only with a manual gearbox, while the “Koreans” continue to have problems with production. All hope remains with Chinese manufacturers, but their sales are unlikely to affect the overall picture.