Day: July 24, 2025

• Avtovaz, the maker of the Lada, is thinking of switching to a four-day workweek amid poor sales.
• It accused foreign car firms of “price dumping,” and projected earlier that 2025 sales would fall 25%.
• But Russians are also buying fewer cars overall, down 27.6% in June year-on-year.

Avtovaz, the firm that manufactures Russia’s best-selling car brand, said on Tuesday that it may shift to a four-day workweek amid forecasts of plummeting sales for this year.

The state-owned automaker told Russian state media it was fighting multiple headwinds, including Chinese car brands surging into the local market.

So it’s considering introducing the downsized workweek in the fall, starting on September 29.

“At the same time, the company emphasizes that the final decision on the introduction of a partial four-day workweek will be made based on the results of an analysis of market trends and economic factors, including the level of the key rate and the availability of credit products,” Avtovaz said in a statement to Russian media.

The firm makes the Lada, the Soviet Union’s most widely produced family of cars, and a symbol of Russia’s Cold War era. The Lada continues to be the most common car in the country.

Avtovaz has previously reduced factory work days. It last introduced a temporary four-day workweek for three months in 2022, as the onset of the Ukraine war prompted foreign industries to leave Russia.

Now, it’s telling state media that its sales were hit hard by tightening car loan rules and high interest rates — debt-averse measures that Moscow imposed amid the West’s sanctions.

China’s cars hit Lada hard

But this time, the company also blamed the heavy import of foreign cars in 2024. With almost all international car brands ceasing official sales in Russia after the Ukraine war began, foreign sales there are dominated by Chinese automakers.

Chinese car brands sold over 1 million vehicles in Russia in 2024, a sevenfold increase from the previous year.

In its statement, Avtovaz accused imported brands of “pursuing a policy of price dumping,” saying that these rivals’ warehouses hold over 400,000 unsold cars.

And the Russian carmaker thinks its revenues will continue to suffer. Avotvaz said last month that it expected its car sales to drop 25% to 1.1 million vehicles in 2025 compared to last year.

That’s amid an overall drop in car sales across Russia. The local auto analysis firm Autostat said on July 4 that 90,116 new passenger cars were sold in June, down 27.6% from the same month last year.

Despite its challenges, Avtovaz holds the largest share in the domestic market, selling just over a quarter of those cars in June.

Avtovaz and Solaris, a new local car company that operates an old Hyundai plant in St. Petersburg, are the only two Russian companies in the country’s top 10 passenger car firms by sales.

Another seven of the top 10 are Chinese firms, while one is Belarusian.

• Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said the company’s budget EV is “just a Model Y.”
• “Let the cat out of the bag there,” Musk said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
• Tesla analysts said releasing a cheaper EV could help Tesla fend off its low-cost Chinese rivals.

Investors clamouring for a budget Tesla just got more intel about it.

The EV giant’s CEO, Elon Musk, said on Wednesday that Tesla’s long-awaited affordable model will resemble the Model Y.

Musk was speaking to investors in Tesla’s latest earnings call when an analyst asked for more details about the budget-friendly EV Musk has long been touting.

“It’s just a Model Y. Let the cat out of the bag there. Dancing cat that can talk and sing and dance,” Musk said. “That’s the cool part.”

Musk did not give further details on the model or its release date. The company said in January that it would start producing “new vehicles, including more affordable models” in the first half of this year.

Representatives for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk said during the earnings call that the “biggest obstacle” to getting more people to own EVs is that they “don’t have enough money in their bank account to buy it.”

“Literally, that is the issue. Not a lack of desire, but a lack of ability. So, the more affordable we can make the car, the better,” Musk added.

Musk told the analyst that the car’s self-driving features would make it even more affordable for customers.

“It will be a very big deal when people can release their car to the fleet and have it earn money for them,” Musk continued.

Musk said he felt confident that Tesla’s customers would be able to rent out their vehicles “next year, in the US at least.”

Back in January, Musk said at Tesla’s fourth quarter earnings call that he expects his vehicles to operate with unsupervised full-self-driving in several US cities by the end of this year, and “probably everywhere” in North America next year.

“That will make affordability dramatically greater. If you have an Airbnb and you can rent out your home when you are not there, or rent out a guest room, or guest house, or something like that. The affordability of your house is much greater,” he said on Wednesday.

Tesla first launched the Model Y in 2020. In January, an updated version was released in China, the US, Canada, the UK, and mainland Europe. The Model Y was the world’s best-selling car in 2023, though it has since ceded ground to its Chinese rivals.

Tesla analysts said earlier this year that releasing a cheaper EV could help the company shore up its position against the low-cost EVs that its Chinese rivals are selling.

Musk’s company has struggled with sales in China. During the second quarter of 2025, the company sold 129,000 vehicles in China, down nearly 12% from the same period in 2024, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

In June, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi said it received over 200,000 orders in 3 minutes for its new YU7 electric SUV. Priced at about $35,000, Xiaomi’s YU7 is slightly cheaper than Tesla’s Model Y, which starts at $36,760.