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Derryl Hermanutz's avatar

Great - and entertaining (: - reporting!

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Stanley Sheppard's avatar

Great reporting Edward and I have to add in a great humorous style! Since I also watch closely current transformation of Russia under probably greatest economic pressure that it ever had (even Soviets weren't pressured as much and in 1930s US went into full scale participation in the famous Soviet industrialization project), I have to add a small correction. Moscow Renault assembly plant does not preserve the right for Renault to come back during 6 years. It is sold (gifted?) to the municipality of the city of Moscow. Period. No come back - otherwise it would have been impossible to get Chinese to partake in that project. It is AutoVAZ plant in Samara where Ladas are produced allowed Renault to re-engage if they'll decide to do so during 6 years. All new Ladas line-up was built using key parts, such as engines and transmissions, using Renault and Nissan components. But at least AutoVAZ has its own engines and transmissions used in older models that can be updated and used in production of the Russia's native passenger vehicles. Russia has a good line-up of pick-up trucks and big trucks, like KamAZ that are built using own parts, but passenger vehicle production was always lagging behind major global manufacturers in the use of modern technology. We'll see - perhaps current crisis gives them a chance to reimagine their auto industry. I have to say that US did that after 2008 crisis. Today's American cars are way better than those produced before 2008, dare to say they are more advanced than many of Japanese models.

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