Startup "Kama" can buy a Ford plant in Naberezhnye Chelny

Electric vehicle developer Kama, created by KAMAZ head Sergey Kogogin and businessman Ruben Vardanyan, expects to raise $150 million in investments. According to the RTVI portal, citing its sources, 20 million of these funds are planned to be spent on the purchase of an idle Ford plant in Naberezhnye Chelny. It is planned to establish the production of electric vehicles on a full cycle, including welding and body painting.

The production of stamped parts is supposed to be transferred to the enterprise of the Turkish company Coskunoz in Yelabuga. Recall that the modernized plant in Naberezhnye Chelny was opened in December 2014. The production capacity of the enterprise is 115,000 vehicles per year; the volume of investments in the project was approximately $400 million. There has been no production there since 2019, when Ford exited the passenger car market by closing two car factories in Naberezhnye Chelny and Vsevolozhsk. Kama has already reached preliminary agreements with Rosatom. In honor of such an investor, the startup is ready to change Kama brand to the Atom brand.

Rosatom's investment will be targeted: it will be spent on the power plant of electric cars. At the same time, Rosatom in the future intends to supply batteries for electric cars, which it plans to produce at a future plant on the territory of the Baltic NPP in the Kaliningrad region. According to the plans, four models of electric cars will be developed on one platform: a 2-door urban Duo, a Family, a taxi and a commercial vehicle for delivery services. All four models will have a range of 500 km on a single charge. Maximum speed is up to 170 km / h. Prototypes are expected in the first quarter of 2023, and the start of mass production is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024.