The Russian Auto Landscape

The may issue of Automotive Design and Production had an interesting article by Juergen Reers and Dr. Uwe Kumm, partners at the Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, called The Russian Auto Landscape. They report that Russia is among the top 10 markets for cars in the world. 1.45 million vehicles were sold in the country in 2005. Sales growth figures are expected to be around seven percent annually until 2010 according to the article. Sales of foreign vehicles in Russia have jumped by 50 percent to 606,000 units in 2005. Hyundai alone as market leader among the foreign manufacturers, has sold more than 85,000 units, approximately half of which have been assembled by its Russian Partner TagAZ.

Ford, Renault, Kia, BMW, and GM already have production facilities or assembly partners in Russia. VW has plans to produce in Russia, and DiamlerChrysler is considering producing locally in Russia.

I think this is great for the Russian economy in the short term. This may be Russia's car boom, like the car boom in the states after WWII in the late 40s and 50s. I'm thinking that we might have maxed out over here however. We seem to be down-sizing. That is a good thing for us. We've clearly gone overboard. We need to find other ways of getting around that aren't so oil intensive.