Indian Car Blazing Russian Trail: Story of Success And Failure
© Sputnik / Алексей Куденко
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Hey, that yellow bugger has actually been made in India: that was, openly and unashamedly, the reason why a Suzuki Jimmy merited a real huge, multi-page car review in the old and prestigious Izvestia newspaper in Russia.
We are talking about a Japanese name and design, but the assembly was in an Indian factory. We’ll see, later on, why that Indian origin of the car matters a lot in the Russian market these days, but let’s have a look, first, at the results of the test drive. Especially considering the fact that Kirill Sazonov, the Izvestia car writer, is somebody notoriously fierce and unforgiving.
So, first of all, we are talking about a big 5-door jungle car, meant for ugliest roads on Earth. And the road selected by Mr. Sazonov was truly ugly. He took the car to a forest near Moscow, with gnarled tree roots crossing the trail, followed by muddy pools of uncertain depth. Well, you may just look at the pictures provided.
The verdict was, good boy Suzuki. Easily traversed the most unthinkable and very Russian roads, and did it in style, since the interior design is vastly better than the smaller Suzuki version, a 3-door buggy, which was definitely not meant for bulky and tall Russian public. A success, on that account.
But, wait – the country also has highways, and that’s where the Suzuki failed, or at least failed to please Mr. Sazonov. You have to correct the wheel all the time if you want to keep your preferable speed, he says. You also cannot really overtake a monster truck, one of those beelining most highways.
The thing is, Russia has built thousands of miles of perfect highways in the last 4-5 years, and the process is only accelerating, stretching mostly in Eastern directions.
Your real speed on these highways is well above the prescribed 110 kilometers per hour, cameras be damned. And one cannot imagine a Russian customer only caring about crossing forests. We, the folks here, need our cars to be both fast and resilient.
Why that episode may be important for India’s development strategy of today? Some explanations are being offered by two events, yesterday and the day before it, in Delhi and Mumbai. In both cases there were the same speakers, namely External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Denis Manturov. They were attending, first, India-Russia Business Forum in Mumbai and, second, the 25th session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission meeting, plus the opening of the Russian Business Centre in India.
What did we hear at these events? First, according to Mr. Jaishankar, bilateral trade between the two countries is presently at $66 billion and the figure will easily touch $100 billion by 2030. Second, Mr. Manturov has reminded the audience that, in the last five years, that trade has grown fivefold and keeps on charging ahead, at the rate of 9% in January – August.
So, India has now become Russia’s second trading partner (after China, naturally), and, judging by the speeches at the mentioned events, we both intend to upkeep that trend of growth.
What’s most important, export of Russian oil, gas and fertilisers to India on the current level may go on as it goes now, but the goal, for both nations, is to speed up the hi-tech component of that trade. Such statements have been made by both sides, in Mumbai and Delhi. People like me may love basmati and Nilgiri tea, but it’s something like cars and machinery from India that we need to see here.
The test drive of an Indian-made car in Russia is just one example of the things going on, but it’s a good example. Automotive industry is as hi-tech as high can be, and the global car market is in the midst of a turmoil that may seriously profit India, showing it the way for a breakthrough along all thinkable lines.
First, there is one remarkable result of the Ukrainian war, unleashed on Russia by the West, mostly by Europeans. The big idea was, you provoke Russia into stepping in the intra-Ukrainian conflict en force, and then you slap sanctions on that Russia and deprive it of European cars and everything thinkable, thus scaring it into submission. And all that was supposed to be quick.
What really happened was a disaster for Europe, since most of its industry was based on cheap and reliable supply of Russian oil and gas. The car industry crushed down, since the price of energy went up. The Russian car writers are following closely the trends in various car shows around the world, and report declining sales and profits of all these Audis and BMWs, that used to be kings of the Russian roads for decades. The Japanese and Koreans demonstrate the same trends and, this week, have softened their bans of the sales of cars to Russia, including some of the Suzukis.
Second, the general picture of the Russian roads today is about German or Japanese cars getting older and shabbier, with more and more of the brand-new Chinese cars whooshing by. But the picture is not as simple as one may think. The same fierce and unforgiving car writers and other experts are noting a general bewilderment of the customers in the face of this Chinese four-wheel flood. Some of these vehicles are real good, some are not, and all these Chinese brands are fighting each other for the future hold on the Russian market, confusing the public even more.
This is why even a single appearance of a car made in India (or in Iran, as it recently happened in Moscow) is being met with universal benign interest. Give us choice, say the customers, and we’ll give you a chance.
Russia is only a market with 140 million customers, but it is a good testing ground for many other emerging markets in the midst of a serious reset of all the global automotive industry. This reset is not only about the demise of European car makers, with very iffy prospect of an American car revival. Things may run deeper than you may think. As an example, all and any electric vehicles met with a tepid response in Russia. We want our cars to run on petrol or, preferably, diesel, and it will be so for years ahead. In the meantime, we’ll have to watch closely the possible triumphant march of Trumpism over the US and other Western nations. As a result, one may expect the mad ideas of the so-called green transition to die with a whimper, and that, again, will be seen all over the world, in this or that consumer market.
In such circumstance it’s very reassuring to see two important nations, that’s India and Russia, coordinating their plans on what to produce and sell in areas where it sells well.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
