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Two Volkswagen plants in Russia have stopped production due to the war between Russia and Ukraine and disruptions in the supply of spare parts, according to the Russian Vedomosti. Volkswagen's two Russian plants, the Kaluga plant and the Nizhny Novgorod plant, will stop production for more than two months and are expected to resume production in June-July this year, according to sources.

Volkswagen is considering shipping parts to Istanbul and then to Russia via Georgia, and Volkswagen hopes to resolve the problem by mid-May, the source said. Another source pointed out that Volkswagen is initially discussing the resumption of transportation in June, but so far, Volkswagen has not announced any news of cutting production plans for the Russian plant in 2022.

In response to the above report, according to the Russian satellite news agency, Volkswagen Group did not disclose the date of resumption of work at the Russian plant. The press office of Volkswagen Group Russia said that the time limit for resuming work at the Volkswagen plant in Russia was unknown and the factory was temporarily suspended until it was notified to resume work.

In fact, on the 3rd of last month, Volkswagen announced the suspension of production at two plants in Russia. Volkswagen said in a Twitter statement that production at its factories in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod in Russia had stopped, as well as car exports to Russia, due to problems such as supply chain shortages caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Employees at Volkswagen's Russian plant have been told to stop production until May 12, but according to the latest news, Volkswagen's Russian plant will stop production until June-July due to supply problems.

According to the Volkswagen Group Rus website, the Volkswagen Group currently employs 4800 people in Russia, of which the Kalu processing plant has about 4000 employees. Volkswagen's Russian Kaluga plant, about 170km southwest of Moscow, has a maximum capacity of 225000 vehicles a year, while Volkswagen's Russian Nizhny Novgorod plant (Nizhny Novgorod), about 430km northeast of Moscow, plans to produce 132000 vehicles a year.

According to relevant data, Volkswagen Group, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, is one of the world's leading automakers and the largest carmaker in Europe. Volkswagen Group established its company LLC Volkswagen Rus in Russia in 2006, and the construction of the Kalu processing plant began in the same year. At present, Volkswagen Group has invested more than 1 billion euros in the Kalu processing plant, with a total investment of 2.06 billion euros in Russia between 2006 and 2021, while the Nizhny Novgorod plant belongs to the GAZ Group, which began to assemble Taos and Skoda models for the Volkswagen Group in 2011.

In terms of production, the Kalu processing plant mainly produces Volkswagen brand Tuguan, hatchback version Polo and Skoda Rapid models, while the plant is also responsible for assembling Audi brand Q7 and Q8 SUV and producing gasoline engines for various models. The Kalu processing plant produced a total of 118000 vehicles in 2021, while Nizhny Novgorod mainly produces Skoda sharp, Kodiak and Korok models.

In terms of sales, according to statistics, Volkswagen delivered about 216000 cars in Russia in 2021, accounting for about 2.4% of the company's global car sales. In addition, according to relevant statistics, Russian car sales in 2021 totaled 1.667 million vehicles, an increase of 4.3% over the same period last year. In the first two months of this year, Russian car sales were 206000, down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier. As for new car sales in Russia in March, nearly 2/3 car brands operating in Russia were shut down because of sanctions from Europe and the US, and car analyst AutoStat said it expected new car sales in Russia to fall 60 per cent month-on-month in March. In addition, the Russian car factory has a total production capacity of more than 2 million vehicles, and originally planned to produce about 1.5 million vehicles this year. However, due to parts shortages and European and American sanctions, some car companies operating in Russia (Nissan, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai) have been forced to close their production lines in Russia, which will further aggravate the situation of car shortage in the Russian market, AFS said. Russian car production is expected to lose 760000 to 815000 vehicles this year and the loss is "irreparable".

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