How miserable is the sanctioned Russian truck industry? Just look at Kamaz's plight.How it will affect the business of european truck parts(cabin pump,cabin cylinder)business ?
Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted on February 24, the two sides have struggled back and forth in a stalemate for more than a month. The conflict not only brought violent conflict to Russia's economy, but also made Russia's already weak truck industry worse. The seven well-known Oka brands have all withdrawn from the Russian market, and such crucial automotive supply chain companies as Cummins, Bosch, and Faurecia have also withdrawn from the Russian market. At the moment when the Russian truck industry is extremely "foreignized", this kind of behavior is tantamount to drawing wages from the bottom of the pot. So how serious is this "foreignization"? In this article, we will take a sample of Kamaz, the most important truck manufacturer in Russia.
Due to the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Kamaz's original "hard-core brother" Daimler Group stopped cooperation with Kamaz under the pressure of public opinion, and companies such as ZF, Caterpillar and Liebherr also Together they stopped their partnership with Kamaz under EU restrictions. This means that Kamaz's current most advanced and powerful truck: the K5 series of trucks will no longer be in production.
Kamaz K5 truck is the latest truck product of Kamaz. After a long period of development, it belongs to the fifth-generation truck product of Kamaz and will be launched to the market in 2019. At present, the representative work of Kamaz K5 is the tractor model 54901. The tractor shares the cabin,cabin pump,cabin cylinder with the Mercedes-Benz Actros, and uses an engine co-developed with Liebherr, a ZF transmission and parts supplied by several European companies. Except the brand is Russian, it is basically a European truck. Not long ago, Kamaz also announced that it would enter the European market of cabin pumps,cabin cylinders, but due to the conflict, Kamaz can only manufacture about 500 54901 tractors with the remaining parts, which is still difficult to supply to the domestic market, not to mention selling back to the European continent.
Under the K5, of course, there are K4 series trucks. The K4 series of trucks is also the result of a collaboration between Kamaz and Daimler. The K4 series trucks are based on Mercedes-Benz's Axor platform and were introduced to the market in 2013. K4 uses Mercedes-Benz Axor cabin pump,cabin cylinder, European technology engine, and has many parts from Europe. The Axor model is not the mainstream of the European market, and it is the same in Russia. With the introduction of the K5 series of trucks, the K4 series of trucks fell out of favor. Kamaz plans to stop the production of the K4 series trucks in 2024, and use the follow-up models of the K3 and K5 to fill the vacancy caused by the discontinuation of the K4 trucks.
What else is under K4? And K3! However, compared with K4 and K5, the two 21st century products, K3 can be said to be a "living fossil". The first-generation Kamaz K3 was born in 1969, and was subsequently upgraded many times in the life cycle, and finally entered the new century with great difficulty. Since the late-model K3 still uses many European components, which are simply not available under European sanctions, only the early-model K3 can be produced.
According to the Russian news site, Kamaz has confirmed to its dealers that it will start supplying the Euro 2 Kamaz K3 series trucks from April 2022, which is next month. These trucks use the most primitive 12-liter V8 engine paired with 5- and 10-speed manual transmissions, and the cabin comfort is also poor. Previously, K3 series trucks were mainly used for export to African countries and Latin American countries. Due to backward emission standards, these trucks cannot be registered in Russia. However, as the situation gets tough, the Russian government will also ease regulations, paving the way for the registration of these trucks. After all, it's better to be behind than nothing.
In the hopeless state of imported parts, Kamaz can only rely on himself. However, due to the prevalence of "comprador" over the years, Kamaz can almost be said to be a puppet of Daimler, and there are no products that can keep up with the times on civilian trucks. From the partial cooperation of K4 to the full Europeanization of K5, Kamaz ushered in a "prosperity" that has never been seen before, and it also fell worse than ever. Without Europe and the United States, Kamaz can only continue to produce K3 series trucks for the civilian market, which also means that Kamaz's civilian truck technical level basically returns to the 1970s and 1980s.
After "breaking up" with his good friends, Kamaz also deeply understood the importance of "self-reliance". Some time ago, the general manager of Kamaz announced that he will strive to resume the production of K5 series trucks in January 2023 without the participation of foreign partners. According to the current developments, Kamaz has drawn up a roadmap to localize imported parts of cabin pump,cabin cylinders, and cooperate with other Russian companies to retool the truck supply chain. Although foreign companies have run away, foreign production lines have not. The cab production line, which is a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Kamaz, will be used next, and the engine production line will continue to be used.
Compared with the K5 series trucks, the production of the K4 series trucks is more optimistic. Company management is coordinating resources so that the K4 series trucks can withstand the duties of the K5 trucks as much as possible, and the assembly and production of the K4 trucks will continue until the end of this year. Since Kamaz has mastered most of the technology on the K4 series trucks, and the stocking of spare parts is more optimistic than the K5 series trucks, the K4 series trucks have to be "ordered between disasters". Otherwise, Kamaz can only let the K3 truck of the last century come out to take the lead.
According to the data of Kamaz's production management department, Kamaz expects to produce 315 K4 series trucks and 222 K5 series trucks in March, for a total of 537 units. In April, Kamaz is expected to produce 54901 tractors among 55 K5 series trucks and 70 K4 series trucks. By May, stock parts for the K5-series trucks will run out, and only 214 K4-series trucks are scheduled. The follow-up production plan has not been announced, but it is still not optimistic. You know, Kamaz will produce more than 40,000 trucks in 2021. Today's data can only be said to be even worse.
The two aspects of light truck and medium truck are always overlooked in statistics, and we briefly bring them here. Kamaz's latest light-to-medium truck product: the Compass series of trucks is facing a shutdown not long after it was announced for mass production. Because the engines of the Compass series trucks are produced by Cummins in the United States, and Cummins responded to the sanctions early and stopped supplying parts to Kamaz.
In addition to Kamaz, Russia also has GAZ (Gas), Ural (Ural) and other enterprises. But the two companies are nowhere near as big as Kamaz in the heavy-duty mainline truck segment, have few products, and aren't as affected as Kamaz. Gaz's latest Valdai Next light truck adopts a full set of Foton technology. The cab comes from Foton Aoling, and the engine comes from Foton Cummins. The full set of Chinese products makes its supply more stable. Ural, on the other hand, focuses on specialty off-road trucks and military trucks, and the impact is not that big.
Auman trucks used in Russia
In addition to European and American trucks, Russia can also switch to China in the field of heavy trucks. Due to factors such as Sino-Russian borders and good relations between the two countries, the sales of Chinese brands in Russia have increased significantly after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. At the same time, better quality and technology than Kamaz has also won more markets for it. The withdrawal of European and American brands from the Russian market has also brought more opportunities for Chinese brands. For example, in terms of passenger cars, the price of Haval has risen by about 40%, while brands such as Changan, Geely, and Chery have also risen by 20%-30%. Even so, it still sells well. From the previous "winning by cost-effectiveness", Chinese brands are expected to take this opportunity to achieve the goal of "winning by strength".
Compared with the Russian truck industry, China's truck industry is more solid. Although the electronic control and other systems that people often talk about are still foreign brands such as Bosch, most of them are manufactured in factories in China, and there are some domestic substitutes, which depend more on the choice of the market. Of course, there is no need to worry about the axle and cab, and there are also many companies such as Faster that can provide usable products for the gearbox. If one day, when this happens to us, at least we will not suffer from the tragedy of Russia.
But more importantly, if any country's industry wants to achieve better development, it is inseparable from the mutual assistance of the globalized market. Many people think that Russia's wake-up call is to create a self-sufficient "industrial system", but in In the editor's opinion, this is not a real warning, but the real warning is that we must avoid being "sanctioned", always maintain a close relationship of mutual assistance with the world market, and take advantage of the powerful conditions of the world market to speed up our truck industry. Bigger and stronger.
After all, by making our industrial base bigger and stronger, we can have more right to speak in the world market!