There is evidence that the development of the next “first” Russian electric car “Atom” is interested in Arrival. This is a British electric car company with Luxembourg jurisdiction, which experts call a “bubble company”. This bubble was inflated by the former owner of Yota and ex-Minister of Communications Denis Sverdlov. In 2020, the company with investments from Hyundai and Kia was valued at €3 billion and had Amazon as a partner. In 2022, due to the inability to organize production, Arrival fell in price by 130 times and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Sverdlov is attracted to Atom by seemingly reliable partners – Ruben Vardanyan and KAMAZ General Director Sergey Kogogin, who is responsible for the project with his production site. As well as possible state patronage with the purchase of the Ford plant in Naberezhnye Chelny for the production of Atom, and there, you see, something else. Atom does not yet have a third partner, the entire project is estimated at $400 million, but $150 million is missing. The fortune of ex-billionaire Denis Sverdlov, who went bust at Arrival, still allows this.
But, as the Atom’s cryptic presentations suggest, this car is designed for a much thinned urban hipster stratum – with a tablet built into the steering wheel and other innovations. With obvious problems with the same organization of production that failed Denis Sverdlov in the UK, she will not meet the mass consumer in Russia. Just like other electric cars. In 2022, 2,998 passenger electric vehicles were sold in the country, of which 991 are premium Teslas. For comparison, Russian sales of Lexus with internal combustion engines last year were 2941 units. But “Moskvich” sells electric cars by some dozens.
The growth of the fleet of electric vehicles by 9 times in 2023 (up to 18.5 thousand) and further is provided only by large businesses like Yandex-Go – Chinese Moskvich and Lipetsk Evolute (114 units sold).
And this is the merit of the authorities. At a price of 3-4 million rubles, the advantages of owning electric cars are not obvious. Fast charging stations in Russia are still a rarity, and even at -20 cold, the battery of an electric car loses up to 40% of energy during charging, and at -10, the power reserve with a full battery is reduced by a third. It is possible to use an electric car for a taxi in most cities of Russia in winter if it drives all the time, heats up and charges for 40 minutes every 150 km. In Moscow, where there are many fast charging stations, this is cost-effective, but already in St. Petersburg – not a fact.
It is impossible and pointless to physically localize the production of equipment, where the main thing is not the motor, and not even the battery, but the electronic filling. The economic model for the production of electric vehicles around the world is based on a global supply chain and generous investment funds. For example, startup Rivian (makes platforms and electric vehicles in the US) in 2021 became the sixth largest automotive company in the world by market capitalization, worth $77.25 billion, overtaking GM. At the same time, Rivian produced 25 thousand cars in 2022. Of the production assets, the company has a design bureau, experimental and assembly shops with 3D printers, and several thousand designers, IT specialists, constructors and salespeople. Production is distributed among Chinese factories, and electric cars are sold in those countries where there is demand.
A different model is working in Russia, where the main thing for the manufacturer of electric cars is to get into the state order or suppliers of companies like Yandex or SberLeasing by any means, and already under it try to get investments and state subsidies for the high cost of production. The only cost-effective legal way to work in such conditions is the SKD of budget Chinese models with a low planning horizon and large-scale marketing campaigns. What, in fact, the pioneers of the Russian electric vehicle industry have been doing all these years.