A Research and Development Center in the field of automotive engineering will appear on the site of the Toyota plant in Shushary, which has been idle since 2022. This was announced to journalists by the Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov. The new center will occupy 18 thousand square meters.
The authorities of the Northern capital will invest treasury infrastructure loan funds in this project in the amount of 3.1 billion rubles. According to Beglov, we are actually talking about a new model for the development of the automotive industry based on our own developments and our own component base.
At the same time, competencies in the development of passenger cars in Russia are already concentrated in the Moscow NAMI and the Togliatti STC VAZ. Moreover, these engineering centers were built in the USSR with the expectation that they would design cars for most automobile plants.
In the neighboring area in Shushary — the former GM plant — the production of cars will resume in the near future, cars of the new Jeland brand, similar to the Chinese Jaecoo, will be produced there. What exactly the new research and production center will create is not yet clear.