Uzbek GM Plant Prepares for Cobalt Exports to Russia

VIENNA – General Motors Uzbekistan, the joint venture owned 25% by General Motors and 75% by the Uzbek state automotive company Uzavtosanoat, is getting set to begin shipments of its Chevrolet Cobalt small sedan to Russia.

The Cobalt was developed in Brazil, where it has been manufactured since 2011. The Uzbek facility in Asaka is the car’s second manufacturing site, with volume production launched in September.

Uzbekistan and Russia will be the two main markets for the Uzbek-made Cobalt. The model also will be exported to other Commonwealth of Independent States countries.

GM presented the Cobalt to Russian consumers at the Moscow auto show in August. Powered by a 1.5L, 105-hp 4-cyl. gasoline engine, the car will base at RR444,0000 ($14,390).

Russian sales are to start in early 2013.

“We plan to produce about 80,000 Cobalt units in 2013,” says General Motors Korea President and CEO Sergio Rocha, who also is responsible for Uzbek operations. “It depends on the market and the export program for Russia.”

Capacity for the car is 115,000 units a year.

Russia’s new scrapping fee, introduced Sept. 1, is increasing Cobalt’s price in Russia and may lower sales for the new model there.

“It may be around 10% of the expected volume,” Rocha says about the potential impact, adding that would leave more capacity to meet demand in the domestic market.

“So we may not have a major impact on our production volumes,” Rocha says. “But it may happen that the proportion of domestic and export sales may change.”

GM Uzbekistan built 193,875 vehicles this year through November, including 4,689 semi-knocked-down cars. The plant is expected to produce some 250,000 cars for entire 2012.

“In Asaka, we can go up to 275,000 cars a year,” Rocha says of the plant’s capacity.

The Cobalt is the newest model made in Asaka. The plant also manufactures the Spark minicar, as well as older models such as the Matiz minicar, Lacetti and Nexia sedans and Damas mini-commercial vans.

While the Matiz, Nexia and Damas vehicles are badged as Chevrolets in Uzbekistan, they still are sold under the Daewoo name in CIS countries. More than 80,000 Daewoo Matiz and Nexia cars were delivered this year through November in Russia.

“We will continue the production of Matiz and Nexia models in Uzbekistan until the market (stops) buying the cars,” Rocha says.

At a separate site in the capital of Tashkent, GM Uzbekistan assembles the Chevrolet Malibu and Captiva in small volumes from SKD kits.

In addition to car production, the partners launched volume production in May at a new engine plant near Tashkent under a separate joint venture owned 52% by GM and 48% by Uzavtosanoat.

“This is a state-of-the-art powertrain plant,” Rocha says. “It is beautiful. It is not only assembling engines, it includes a foundry, and we are doing machining.”

The new factory, the first engine plant established on the territory of the former Soviet Union by a foreign car maker, is producing 1.2L and 1.5L 4-cyl. gasoline engines.

“We currently have the first module of the plant operating, which means that we expect to produce 120,000 to 125,000 engines next year,” Rocha says. “The second module will be added later.”

The Uzbek-made engines mostly are targeted for installation in cars manufactured in the Asaka plant.

“But sometimes we may need the engines at different sites as well,” Rocha says. “For example, we brought some engines from Uzbekistan to South Korea due to a capacity constraint there.”

About 10,000 engines were expected to be shipped to Korea this year.