This could happen as early as the beginning of the fall.
Already this fall in Russia, a significant increase in prices for new cars is expected due to fluctuations of the ruble, experts and representatives of dealer centers told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Vladimir Zhelobov, director of the repurchase department of GC Avtodom and GC AutoSpecCenter, warns about the need to prepare for a price increase of 15-20 percent. He notes that soon the stock of cars of European brands will be exhausted and the supply will be limited by the cars imported from abroad at the current exchange rate of the Russian currency which is at its minimum level.
According to Zhelobov, these changes in the car market will force sellers to pay attention to less well-known Chinese brands or start offering used cars.
Evgeny Zhitnukhin, the head of the dealer division of the car marketplace Fresh, is also sure that the prices for the cars made in Russia will also increase. But the decline in purchasing power of the population will not have a significant impact on prices, although in theory car dealerships could reduce the cost of domestic cars.
Alexei Tuzov, an independent expert in the transport industry, suggests that domestic cars may become less expensive than imported ones, due to a higher level of localization of production.
The previous proposal of the National Union of Consumer Rights Protection to set the maximum markup for dealers on Russian cars at 15 percent was sent to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. However, experts have expressed doubts about the positive effect of this proposal, pointing out that the main problem of the car market in Russia is the shortage of affordable cars, and the introduction of price controls alone will not solve this problem.
Statistics for the first five months of 2023 show that imports of cars in Russia reached 171.5 thousand units, almost five times more than in the pre-crisis year of 2021. At the same time, domestic car production decreased by 42 percent compared to the same period last year.