The idea of a Russian electric car was lobbied at the very top, and even introduced to Vladimir Putin. But the President did not appreciate her in any way.
“Everything that the state touches acquires the features of a cast-iron stool,” director Kirill Serebrennikov once said. The Sobesednik checked this statement on the example of the Russian response to Elon Musk, on which hundreds of millions of rubles were spent from the budget. It seems the director was right.
Test drive for the minister
In March last year, something strange was happening in the Zhigulevskaya Dolina technopark in Togliatti. Journalists and security guards surrounded an unusual-looking car, inside of which Denis Manturov, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, was sitting. The official made a couple of circles, after which he got out of the car, closing the door with a crash. The noise confused Manturov a little, but he immediately found an excuse:
– Since this is still a pilot industrial model, here it is necessary to work on sound insulation and the interior to the end so that it is already standard. But the management is quite comfortable, – explained head of department.
The official spoke about the Russian response to the American Elon Musk. More specifically, his Tesla electric car. The project was called Zetta, it should be produced by the company of the same name from Tolyatti, which received support from the very top. As well as hundreds of millions of rubles from the budget.
Initially, the same Manturov assuredthat the serial production of Zetta is scheduled for the first quarter of 2020. Then timing moved at the end of 2020. After a test drive in March 2021, named new date. “They will start before the end of the year,” Manturov confidently announced. The minister was wrong again.
Chronicle of a dive car
For the first time the name Zetta sounded back in 2017. Then in Ulyanovsk showed an outlandish-looking car developed by designers from Zelenograd and Togliatti (at that moment it was called “El Panda”). The event coincided with a visit to the city by President Vladimir Putin, who held a meeting of the Presidium of the State Council on the issues of the integrated development of passenger transportation. The head of state saw a prototype of an electric car, but did not appreciate it in any way, talked to the creator, simply wishing him good luck. However, at the same time, PR materials began to appear on the Internet, which praised the novelty with might and main.
“Now all Russians have a real reason for pride”, “a unique car of its kind”, “there are no analogues in the whole world”, – said in brochures. The plans were grandiose: instead of an engine, motor-wheels, a media system tablet, keyless entry. planned even neurocontrol – that is, so that the machine can be controlled with the help of thoughts.
Photo: archive
This is what the Zetta should have looked like
At that moment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade began to provide financial support to the project. According to the agency, in 2017-2018 “Zette” were issued subsidies in the amount of 285 million rubles. for research and development work (R&D). Also company received preferential loan from the Fund for the Development of Monotowns (49.5 million rubles). State support helped create a prototype.
The novelty was demonstrated at an exhibition in Moscow, and soon officials began to lobby for it. So, in 2018, at one of the meetings, a proposal was made to produce cars at AvtoVAZ. Looking ahead, we note that this did not happen. But in 2019, the project was discussed at the highest level.
– At present, with the active support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, a project is being developed for a budget all-wheel drive electric vehicle of domestic design and assembly “Zetta”, – said Manturov. Serial production was planned to start before the end of the year. The same was stated by the general director of Zetta Denis Shchurovsky. But already in November, the minister changed his rhetoric – production will be launched in the first quarter of 2020. In August, the deadlines moved again, already at the end of the year. There was also an explanation – the coronavirus pandemic, which “made its own adjustments.”
The development of the project required additional funding in the amount of 100 million rubles. However, the Industry Development Fund refused in granting credit. After that, the date was again postponed – already at the end of 2021. Outside – February 2022, no sales are heard. As a source in the car market told Sobesednik, “now the project has been put on hold.”
Links at the top
Zetta LLC was registered in Togliatti back in 2016. Its owners are Denis Shchurovsky and Waldemar Wagner. It was Shchurovsky who showed Putin the prototype of the Russian Tesla and shook hands with the president. Zetta is not his first failed business. Prior to that, he owned the AZ Powertrain company, which was supposed to produce engines for the new Chevrolet Niva. But in 2018, the company terminated the contract with the Ministry of Economic Development through the court. And later it was completely liquidated.
Sources of “Interlocutor” in the car market call the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov the main lobbyist of “Zetta”. At the same time, the official himself prefers the brainchild of Elon Musk. As follows from the income statement, Manturov is the owner of the Tesla X100D car (its price is around 10 million rubles).
But “Interlocutor” found another talking coincidence. The first founder of “Zetta” was the Nizhny Novgorod holding “X Group”, owned by the top manager of the company “Autocomponent” Mikhail Ershov. Its beneficiary is Oleg Zaitsev, who was close to the Nizhny Novgorod governor Valery Shantsev (first he was a member of the local government, and then became an adviser to the head of the region). Shantsev was previously vice-mayor of Moscow and well familiar all with the same Denis Manturov. And the current governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, was the first deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and was getting from him such compliments: “very creative, competent.”
Photo: government of the Nizhny Novgorod region
Denis Manturov and Gleb Nikitin
Already under Nikitin, Zetta received three state contracts from the Nizhny Novgorod University. N. I. Lobachevsky in the amount of 25 million rubles, follows from the SPARK data. Among other things, she had to make a running model for the neuromobile.
In Nizhny Novgorod, the company “Auto-ZET” was also created, on the site of which cars were to be produced. One of its founders is the same Churovsky.
So the fairy tale about the sudden success of a regional start-up turned into another story about connections in power structures. This explains such an active lobbying of the project at the very top. However, even he did not save Zetta from big financial problems.
Working atmosphere
– The company was solid in the beginning, there are no special problems in the technical equipment. The only thing, it seemed to me, was lacking a point of contact and the beginning of a full-fledged project on the part of the management. Well, the general problem in the background is the delay in wages, which has been going on for quite a long time, ”recalls Aleksey Timokhovsky, a former worker of the Zetta plant, in a conversation with Sobesednik.
There are other opinions about the domestic electric car.
– The project is obviously a failure. They are pulling as hard as they can with the launch, since in fact no one will need the car after the launch, and funding will immediately stop, – such a review about working at Zetta was found on a recruiting site.
According to the author of the comment, the plant paid small salaries and fired “6 people at a time without warning.” However, Zetta does not always give money to its workers either.
At the end of January 2021, the prosecutor’s office of Togliatti reported, that in the fall of 2020, Zetta did not pay salaries to 59 employees in the amount of more than 4 million rubles until the authorities were involved in resolving the issue. After the intervention of the security forces, the debt was repaid. Where the company’s management got the money from is not clear, because the same Shchurovsky is in debt. Since August last year, he has not been able to pay a property tax of 13.6 thousand rubles.
Photo: YouTube.com
Today Denis Shchurovsky is a defendant in a criminal case
Now with regard to Shchurovsky excited criminal case – he is accused of non-payment of wages for more than two months (part 2 of article 145.1 of the Criminal Code). The businessman himself refuses from any comments (although he used to actively communicate with the media).
Interestingly, Zetta estimated the sales capacity at 10-15 thousand electric vehicles per year. At the same time, in 2020, only 687 electric cars were bought in the country.
Initially, the car was positioned as a means of transportation for people with disabilities. But now in his description on the Zetta website you will not find any mention of the disabled.
If Zetta never enters the market, it will be the second unsuccessful development of an electric car in Russia – after Mikhail Prokhorov’s Yo-mobile. In any case, Elon Musk can sleep peacefully for now.