In 2024 the automotive plants in St. Petersburg produced about 40,000 vehicles, a level that sits far below the peak reached before the crisis. The 2019 period saw the same facilities turning out roughly 372,000 passenger cars, making the 2024 figure about nine times smaller. This gap reflects the changing dynamics of the regional car industry, where demand, supply chain pressures, and broader market shifts shaped a year of adjustment rather than a full rebound. The numbers illustrate a sector that remained much smaller than its pre-pandemic scale, signaling a cautious but persistent effort to refashion the local automotive landscape toward steady production and resilience in the face of ongoing global economic headwinds.
One key facility in the cluster is Avtozavod St., where vehicles are built under the XCite brand. Public statements from the company indicated an expected output of 20,000 cars for 2024. Another plant tied to the AGR group, which operates the former Hyundai facilities, marked a milestone in December 2024 by delivering the 20,000th Solaris-branded car. Taken together, these developments point to a partial revival rather than a full-scale revival, with brands shaping a clearer, albeit smaller, footprint for the city’s manufacturing identity as they navigate current market conditions.
Together, the two factories produced about 40,000 cars for the year, a stark contrast to the pre-Covid period when the area’s automotive operations in this family of brands reached roughly 372,000 passenger cars. Analysts note that the St. Petersburg automotive cluster ended 2024 with roughly 10 to 11 percent of the earlier volume, underscoring how far the region still has to travel to reclaim its former scale and to restore a more robust supply chain that supports a broader roster of models and exporters.
At the same time, official statistics indicate a turn in the right direction. Through the first eleven months of 2024, automobile production rose nearly fourfold compared with the same period a year earlier, signaling early signs of stabilization and renewed activity within the regional manufacturing ecosystem as suppliers, automakers, and logistics networks adjust to new realities.
Separately, in another major city, a traffic incident involving a bus led to injuries. A bus in Moscow collided with a vehicle, injuring three people near a taxi traveling in the opposite lane, highlighting ongoing road safety concerns and the varied pace of urban transportation developments across large metropolitan areas.