Aurus cars may begin to be assembled at the former Toyota plant in St. Petersburg
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Aurus cars may begin to be assembled at the former Toyota plant in St. Petersburg. The company is looking for employees in the city, and its CEO Andrey Pankov headed Shushary Auto, which took over the plant. Now Aurus is produced in Yelabuga. Interest in St. Petersburg, Kommersant sources say, arose against the backdrop of Gazprom’s plans to participate in the project. According to analysts, the Toyota site is better suited for Aurus than for the assembly of Almaz-Antey trucks, which was discussed earlier.
According to Kommersant, Aurus is considering organizing assembly at the former Toyota plant in Shushary. Kommersant’s sources say that Gazprom is interested in creating production in the region and is planning to enter the project. The plant in Shushary belongs to FSUE NAMI, the main shareholder of Aurus.
Aurus is owned by FSUE NAMI (63.5%), the Arab fund Tawazun (36%) and Sollers (0.5%). Since mid-2021, Aurus has been mass-produced in Yelabuga, including welding and painting of bodies at the Sollers site. The scope of the project is small for a car plant, Kommersant’s interlocutors note. The Aurus Senat and the Komendant SUV are currently in production. Production volumes are unknown, but in 2023 it was planned to assemble 200 Komendants. The board of directors of Gazprom met in early December to discuss the implementation of the Aurus project, as follows from the company’s materials. The Vedomosti newspaper at the end of October 2023, citing sources, reported that Gazprom could enter the capital of Aurus with a stake of up to 40%.
Vladimir PutinPresident of the Russian Federation, December 14, 2023:
“We have a whole line of Aurus – limousines, sedans, jeeps, and there will be a bus. We need to start mass-producing them, and then the prices for them will immediately fall, but this will take time.”
The head of Aurus LLC, Andrey Pankov (former top manager of Renault in Russia), headed the Shushary Auto legal entity, which owns the ex-Toyota plant in Shushary. He also headed the North Star Automobile Plant JSC (created in 2023), owned by Irina Rostova with mail on the kamaz domain. This information was first noticed by the Russian Automobile Telegram channel. He also drew attention to a number of vacancies from Aurus, posted in St. Petersburg, for production personnel.
Kommersant sent questions to Aurus, NAMI and KamAZ. Mr. Pankov’s phone was switched off. Gazprom declined to comment.
The government of St. Petersburg neither confirmed nor denied information about plans to produce Aurus at the plant in Shushary. “I cannot confirm this yet,” Kirill Soloveichik, chairman of the city committee on industrial policy, innovation and trade, told Kommersant.
Kommersant’s sources suggest that KamAZ can help Aurus organize production.
KamAZ is already a production partner of Moskvich (ex-Renault plant in Moscow, owned by the city authorities). Another Kommersant interlocutor, close to KamAZ, said that Aurus “will handle it just fine,” and Ms. Rostova is a “legal adviser.”
In June 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced that NAMI would transfer the Shushary Auto plant to the ownership of the Almaz-Antey defense holding. Initially, there was talk about the potential start of production of the e-Neva electric vehicle developed by Almaz-Antey in 2026, but then the concern announced plans to begin assembling its own truck in 2024 (see “Kommersant” dated April 17, 2023). Kommersant’s sources say that initially Almaz-Antey did not have a ready-made project for mass production, and against this background, Aurus looks like a more viable model. In addition, before the transfer to NAMI, the Toyota plant produced passenger cars.
Automotive expert Vladimir Bespalov notes that under the Aurus project there are plans to expand production and the line of cars, and in general it is logical to use the capacities that we already have for this. The site in Shushary has good infrastructure, and logistics with the region are well built, the analyst adds. “If the product goes well on the market, this will help load the site,” he concludes.
Before the crisis, St. Petersburg was one of the main automobile manufacturing regions of the Russian Federation, but now all car factories are idle. In addition to Shushary Auto, production in the city has not resumed at the former Nissan plant (Lada St. Petersburg, transferred to AvtoVAZ), as well as at Hyundai sites. The last asset is now being purchased by Art-Finance of the former president of Avilon, Andrei Pavlovich.
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