At the Mercedes-Benz plant in the Moscow region, which the company is selling to the Russian dealer Avtodom, they can begin assembling Chinese premium cars of the Hongqi brand (“Hongqi”). This was reported by two sources of “Izvestia” in the dealer business and in one of the manufacturers of China.
Maxim Shishko, General Director of Avtosmart (Avtodom’s subsidiary in the car subscription service), announced at the Intersectoral Automobile Congress the day before that the plant will start assembling Chinese cars. However, he did not specify which brands it would be.
“Our main task is to make a full-fledged replacement for Mercedes, BMW, Audi, those brands familiar to us, which were sold at 150-200 thousand cars a year. This segment has a high potential,” Shishko said.
Two interlocutors of Izvestia in the auto business noted that apart from Hongqi, there are no other notable auto brands in the premium segment in China. According to one source, crossovers may be the first to go into production. One of them – HS5 – has already been certified in Russia at the end of 2022. Then the specialized media reported on Hongqi’s plans to start importing the model to the Russian Federation. The brand’s flagship model, the H9 sedan, also received vehicle type approval.
The press service of Avtodom declined to comment. Izvestia sent a request to the Hongqi company, to the FAW representative office in Russia, FAW Eastern Europe, as well as to the press service of the government of the Moscow Region.
