About a quarter of the workforce at the former Nissan automotive plant in St. Petersburg remains idle as the site retools to assemble smaller units. This update comes via TASS, quoting the plant’s general director, Ivan Mironov, and reflects a period of transition rather than long-term shutdown. The facility, which once ran high-volume production, is recalibrating its processes and staffing to support new manufacturing modes while the broader industry navigates sanctions, market shifts, and strategic realignments.
Today the plant employs roughly 1,200 people. While the SKD assembly work is in progress, several workshops are temporarily offline. Management notes that from 200 to 300 workers are idle each month. This pattern is expected to continue as the site completes its reconfiguration, maximizes the use of all workshops, and migrates toward small unit assembly, body welding, painting, and final assembly stages. This plan aims to preserve expertise on site while gradually expanding into more modular production lines.
The facility, formerly known as a Nissan plant, began sending workers to idle status on May 24 as production shifts were planned around the transition. The St. Petersburg site opened in June 2009, featuring production lines for compact crossovers like the X-Trail, Murano, Qashqai, and Terrano. At that time, the plant’s stated capacity reached up to 100,000 cars per year, reflecting a significant manufacturing footprint in the region. In autumn 2022, Nissan’s Russian assets were sold to FSUE NAMI and subsequently transferred to AvtoVAZ, signaling a major material and corporate realignment in the sector. (Source: TASS)
In January 2024, the plant produced its first batch of machines under the new Xcite brand, signaling a shift toward a refreshed product lineup. The facility later underwent name changes to Lada St. Petersburg and then Avtozavod St. Petersburg LLC, underscoring the evolving corporate identity as production transitioned away from the former Nissan branding. The 2023 financial statements show a net loss of 13.7 billion rubles, up from 6 billion rubles in 2022, with revenue for 2023 falling to 3.7 billion rubles, down almost 90 percent year over year. These figures illustrate the macroeconomic and organizational pressures accompanying the plant’s broader reorientation. (Source: Company disclosures)
Earlier market reports highlighted a surge in demand timing, noting that about 33.2 thousand new cars were sold in Russia within a single week, a statistic that reflects the volatility and rapid shifts in consumer activity during the broader transition period. (Source: Market data releases)