“Avtozavod St. Petersburg”, also known as “Nissan Manufacturing Rus” in the past, is a full-cycle enterprise with assembly, welding and painting shops, which can produce C-, D-E-class cars, as well as SUVs (crossovers and SUVs ). The plant’s design capacity is 100 thousand cars per year, but now it operates at only a quarter of its capacity and produces only one model – the C-class crossover Xcite X-Cross 7. The bodies for it are captured in the photograph.
Xcite 
To resume work after Nissan left Russia, the new management of the site enlisted the support of an “East Asian” (namely Chinese) partner. Representatives of Avtozavod St. Petersburg and the Xcite brand prefer not to say its name out loud, but one look at X-Cross 7 is enough to understand which Chinese company is the site’s partner and what kind of model it was before the nameplate was changed. This is “he who must not be named” or “you know who”, whichever you like best.
Xcite 
Components for cars are brought from China. In China, bodies are welded and painted and components and assemblies are produced, but they are not assembled into a finished car before being disassembled and sent to Russia (as, for example, was the case with Moskvich and JAC). Everything arrives in St. Petersburg in containers in parts: the engine separately, the body separately, the chassis and other parts separately.
Xcite 
It turns out that some workshops of the St. Petersburg plant are not currently involved in the production process, since literally all that needs to be done is to install the engine, chassis, fill in fluids, do anti-corrosion treatment and check the finished car at the control line. So no spectacular sparks, robots or “bathing” bodies in the bathtub.
Xcite 
Perhaps the most interesting stage of assembly is the so-called “wedding”. The bodies move along the line, and two operators install the suspension elements, and they must do this synchronously.
Motor.ru 
It is also worth mentioning the self-propelled EVA trolleys, which were inherited from Nissan. There are 120 of them at the enterprise, and each is numbered.
Xcite 
The first and currently only model produced by Avtozavod St. Petersburg is the Xcite X-Cross 7. The 4.5-meter long crossover with 190 mm ground clearance is equipped with a 1.5-liter gasoline turbo engine that develops 147 horsepower. strength and works in conjunction with the variator. The “Seven” has exclusively front-wheel drive.
Xcite 
The assembly of the Xcite X-Cross 7 crossovers was launched in the spring of 2024, and the model went on sale at the end of May. By mid-June, about 10 thousand cars rolled off the assembly line, and sales amounted to several hundred copies. As of mid-June, X-Cross 7 costs from 2,499,000 rubles.
Xcite 
In the future, it is planned to expand the model range. Already this fall, a slightly larger crossover will hit the assembly line, which will be all-wheel drive. The St. Petersburg plant and its industrial partner already have the corresponding agreements. It can be assumed that, following the logic of the names, the second model will be called Xcite X-Cross 8. It’s easy to guess which partner’s crossover will be taken as the basis.
Xcite
A new stage has begun in the history of the plant, which Nissan built in St. Petersburg back in 2009: now crossovers of the new Russian brand Xcite are assembled there using the large-knot method. The company operates under the simple name “Avtozavod St. Petersburg”, and there is no sign on the building itself – the old one with the mention of the Nissan that left Russia was dismantled, and the new one was not hung up. As in the case of other automobile plants, the Chinese helped with the restart of this site, but due to fear of sanctions, the name of the new industrial partner is not spoken. We tell and show what is happening at the plant now, 15 years after the very first car rolled off the assembly line.
