Russian car production of up 7.1%, trucks down 15.6% in Q1 - Rosstat

MOSCOW. April 24 (Interfax) - Russian passenger car production rose 7.1% year-on-year in Q1 2025 while truck production fell 15.6%, the State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said.

Russia produced 176,000 passenger cars in Q1. It produced 60,900 in March, down 2.1%.

Production of goods vehicles since the beginning of the year totaled 36,600. The March figure was 14,200, down 7.3%.

Production of buses weighing over 5 tonnes fell 39.6% to 881 units in March and 41% to 2,248 in Q1.

Production of internal combustion engines rose 0.6% in March to 19,800 and fell 0.9% in Q1 to 52,600.

Production of vehicle bodies fell 46.7% in March to 2,100 and fell 32.9% in Q1 to 6,800.

Production of certain types of vehicles, including trucks, is falling as the Russian automobile market cools under pressure from interest rates and a decline in car imports from China, the key external supplier of cars to the Russian market. One of the factors behind the drop in supplies from China was the two-step increase in the recycling fee in October last year and at the beginning of this year.