The Moscow and St. Petersburg governments signed a cooperation agreement within the framework of the XVII International Forum "Transport of Russia" to increase the share of electric transport use, develop charging infrastructure, and build up the potential of electric vehicle clusters in both cities. The agreement is signed for a period of 49 years, the parties said in a joint statement. In order to implement the agreement, working groups will be set up in the government of each city and a specific action plan will be defined to address the issues mentioned in the agreement. The agreement opens a new chapter in the cooperation between the automobile industry of the two megacities.
The central theme of the agreement is the development of cooperation between Russian manufacturers of electric vehicles and suppliers of components, including the involvement of specialized research organizations and universities for the production of electric vehicles in Moscow and St. Petersburg. "By joint efforts we will develop projects in the field of unification of the component base of electric vehicles and bring the Russian automotive industry to a new level. St. Petersburg has a number of its own unique competencies. First of all, it is the Obukhovsky Zavod project to organize the production of cars, trucks and electric vehicles under the ENEVA and BAZ brands," said Kirill Polyakov, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg.
"With today's agreement, we and our colleagues from St. Petersburg have agreed that we will try to unify our transportation systems as much as possible - all the components we use for both urban and passenger cars, as well as charging stations. This will allow Russian automakers to get a wider market and more unified components for production. We are confident that it will help to reduce the cost of production," said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow. According to AUTOSTAT data as of July 1, 2023, Moscow has the largest parc of electric cars among the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (5164 vehicles), which accounts for 20% of the total number.
In other words, every fifth electric car is registered in the capital. St. Petersburg ranks the sixth in the regional ranking with 1,265 electric cars. In total, there are about 26 thousand electric cars in Russia.
