At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the Kaluga Region presented its industrial achievements, but the expected newcomer — the TENET car — was not at the stand. The Governor of the Kaluga Region, Vladislav Shapsha, explained the reasons for this decision in an interview and spoke about the current state of the automotive industry in the region.
After changes in logistics and partnerships, the Kaluga Region actively sought new technological partners. As a result, the former Volkswagen (now AGR) and Peugeot Citroën (RAMA) plants resumed operation. According to the governor, the AGR plant plans to produce at least 135,000 cars:
In less than a year, AGR has assembled almost 75,000 cars. <...> I set a minimum target of 135,000. Perhaps it will be more. Judging by the pace that has been set today, it will be more.
One of the key issues is the compliance of new cars with customer expectations. The governor emphasized that the quality management system at the AGR plants has been preserved:
If something is not screwed on, not tightened, or tightened with insufficient force, then this car does not pass the quality management check that is organized there today. <...> Organized, I remind you, by the specialists who were once trained and carried out this quality check at the Volkswagen plant — a fairly high level of requirements. <…> For our Chinese partners, this was somewhat unexpected, because for them, if a car drives and rolls off the assembly line on its own, what questions can there be. Nevertheless, this issue was accepted, and today the cars that come off the "AGR" assembly line have all the nuts tightened and the bolts properly tightened with the necessary force. And this requirement, which Volkswagen once established, has now been transferred to those Chinese cars, as we call them today. And this is probably not bad, because the quality of these cars will probably even be somewhat higher than the cars that are brought from abroad, from China.
The transition from large-unit assembly to a full cycle is underway: already this summer, AGR will begin production of the TENET crossover with a high degree of localization.
In the near future, this summer, we will move to a full-cycle assembly, and the car that we presented in February, if I'm not mistaken, the Tenet car, will be assembled in full-cycle form.
Despite the modest number of electric vehicles in the region (600–700 units), the focus is on infrastructure development. The region is home to Pandora, a manufacturer of charging stations that occupies a third of the Moscow market. The authorities intend to diversify the economy to reduce dependence on one industry.
You need to put eggs in different baskets in order to have guarantees of economic stability in case of anything.
The automotive industry remains a key sector of the Kaluga Region, providing 20% of industrial production.
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