The production site in Ulyanovsk this summer came under the full ownership of the Sollers automobile manufacturing holding, and the company intends to restart the plant in December. As TASS reports, before the new year Sollers will present a line of cars that will be produced at the Ulyanovsk plant. These will be models “that will help the company maintain the market share previously occupied by Isuzu,” Zoya Kaika, deputy head of Sollers, told reporters.
The fact that Isuzu was finally leaving Russia was announced in June 2023. At the same time, it became known that Sollers closed a deal to purchase a 100 percent share of Isuzu Rus, including a production site in Ulyanovsk, and assumed obligations for the supply of spare parts and warranty repairs of cars of its former Japanese partner.
The plant in Ulyanovsk was put into operation in 2008, producing light-duty (N-series), medium-duty (F-series) and heavy trucks (Giga series). In 2021, 3.7 thousand trucks rolled off the assembly line, which corresponds to approximately one percent of the company’s global production. In addition to locally assembled trucks, Isuzu also sold two imported models in Russia, the MU-X SUV and the B-Max pickup truck.
The site has been idle since March last year, but Sollers, for its part, promised to preserve jobs and load the capacity vacated by the departure of Isuzu.
Sollers already produces cars under its own brand in Elabuga and Ulyanovsk on the territory of UAZ, and the other day the serial assembly of Sollers pickups started at the facilities of the former Mazda plant in Vladivostok. The Sollers models are based on Chinese JACs.
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