Russian car industry buckles under sanctions

Key takeaways: 

• Prices have twisted out of control since the attack on Ukraine as the market struggles to adjust.
• Dealerships were ineffective.

Eldar Gadzhiev’s heart dropped when he heard the sputtering from the machine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four vehicles that he rents as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a horrible and costly time for a breakdown

If you even could discover them, costs for spare parts had spiraled out of control since Vladimir Putin called the invasion of Ukraine two months before. “I understood that I was in a bad position,” he said. “I thought: the repairs will cost as much as the vehicle.”

Dealerships were ineffective, he said. His car parts store told him that the waiting list was months long, the time he could not wait to fix his car.

So he tried publishing on a public chat. 

That’s when his phone started to “explode,” he said. He got tens of calls, some from rough-sounding “dealers” offering to meet or giving him vague promises to get the required parts.

“It’s a full-on assumption,” he said. “There are no more spare parts. So the costs are way too high, you could basically [throw away] the vehicle, or you think: is this illegal?”