ST. PETERSBURG, June 5. /TASS/. Avtovaz intends to make around 3,000 Lada Aura cars this year, CEO of the company Maxim Sokolov said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"We expect that this year we can manufacture about 3,000 cars," he said.

In the future, the car will be produced on the same car assembly line as the Lada Vesta, at a speed of approximately 5 cars per hour.

The start of mass production of Lada Aura is scheduled for the Q3 2024.

Sokolov announced in an interview with NTV channel earlier on Wednesday that sales of Avtovaz’ new Lada Iskra car model may begin at the turn of the Q1 and the Q2 of 2025. "Assembly-line production will begin in early 2025, so sales to dealer centers will begin at the turn of the first and second quarters of next year, at the very latest - in the first half of the year," he said.

Avtovaz expects to produce about 70,000 -100,000 cars in the new Lada Iskra family in the first years after its launch, Sokolov added. As for investments in the project, he noted that the total volume amounted to 37 bln rubles ($409.41 mln). The price of the new Lada Iskra car will start from 1 mln rubles ($11.11 mln), he noted.

On Wednesday, Avtovaz presented its Lada Iskra model for the first time at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Sokolov told reporters earlier that the volume of production of Lada cars may reach 1 mln units per year by 2030 under the optimistic scenario, though everything will depend on the market. "Considering the fact that according to our strategy, as has been decided by the board of directors, in the near future we should produce 12 new products, including restyling of the existing model range, we believe that this target (of 1 mln cars -TASS) from the viewpoint of the number of cars produced by Avtovaz may be met. The more so as the range of partner projects where we supply SKD sets is expanding and covers not only territories in our country but a number of CIS countries as well," he said.

This is suggested by the optimistic scenario, and the result depends on demand, Sokolov added. In 2025, output volumes will be seriously higher than those expected in 2024, he noted. Earlier reports said that Avtovaz would produce around 500,000 cars this year.

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is held on June 5-8. This year’s theme will be "The Formation of New Areas of Growth as the Cornerstone of a Multipolar World." Scheduled events include meetings for small and medium-sized businesses, creative industries, the SPIEF Youth Day, as well as the Drug Security, SPIEF Academy and SPIEF Junior forums. SPIEF is organized by the Roscongress Foundation. TASS is the information partner of the event.