AvtoVAZ President Maxim Sokolov announced that the company is negotiating with Chinese automakers to launch the production of cars under the Lada brand.
«We are conducting negotiations with several major Chinese partners. We will give the Lada brand to new models that we will produce with our Chinese partners. At the same time, we are not going to pull the wool over anyone's eyes and say that today this is a Chinese product, but taking into account the capabilities of \"AvtoVAZ\", its engineering center, which employs 3.5 thousand specialists, we will move towards localization of this car in leaps and bounds», – he said.
Chinese cars under the Lada badge are planned to be produced at three sites: in Izhevsk (where Vesta was previously produced), St. Petersburg (at the former Nissan plant), and at the OAO «Lada Zapad Tolyatti» enterprise, where Niva Chevrolet was previously produced. «Three sites, three partners», – explained the president of «AvtoVAZ». He added that negotiations are planned to be completed by the end of this year.
«We want to give our customers the most modern products, some of which are not even certified in China itself yet. And this takes a certain amount of time. Certification usually takes nine months. And some additional certification of this model will be required in Russia. Therefore, we can talk about launching the following models, but it will take time», – Maxim Sokolov specified.