Russia Refusing To Buy New MAZ Buses

Sales of Belarusian buses in the Russian market fell by 28% in the first quarter.

In March 2024, 79 new buses of Minsk Automobile Plant were sold on the Russian market - 20.2% less than in the same month of 2023 (99). As "Pozirk" writes, this is evidenced by the data of the "ACM-holding" agency (RF).

In the first quarter, 226 units were sold (314). The drop in sales amounted to 28%.

The products of Minsk Automobile Plant took the 6th place in the list of the best-selling brands in this segment of the Russian car market last month, stated the experts. The market share amounted to 3.7%.

Russian PAZ (1,170; +60.7% year-on-year), Nefaz (250; +85.2%) and LiAZ (153; -8.4%) were the sales leaders in March.

In 2023, 925 units of this type of transport were sold - 11.1% less than in 2022 (1,040). According to the results of 2023, as well as a year earlier, MAZ ranked 6th in the relevant segment of the Russian car market.

At the meeting on the development of industry on April 9, 2024, Aliaksandr Lukashenka said that "domestic products lag behind their analogues both in price and quality".

On January 3, a bus, produced by Minsk Automobile Plant, caught fire in St. Petersburg. According to "Fontanka," it belonged to the Domtransavto company.

According to the Russian media, at least 9 Belarusian-made buses caught fire in this city last year. A year earlier, 8 such cases were recorded.

"In connection with the presence of drawbacks that could potentially lead to buses catching fire, a decision was made to suspend the operation of 137 buses of Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ 203047) on the city route network. They came to St. Petersburg under the contracts of 2022," reported the press service of the state owned company of "Passazhiravtotrans" on August 2, 2023.

MAZ said in response to an enquiry from St Petersburg vice-governor Kirill Polyakov in June 2022 that the cause of the fires could be "oil from the fan hydraulic drive system getting onto the hot parts of the engine".

"In the conditions of sanctions pressure and disruption of logistics chains during the supply of hydraulic drive sets, there could have been a replacement of tested flanges with other flanges, similar in technical characteristics, but without tested references," the official explained.

The presence of the problem with Belarusian buses was indirectly confirmed by Lukashenka, who said at the meeting with Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev on September 19, 2023 that the cause of fires of passenger transport in St. Petersburg was the lack of "quality and timely servicing". He proposed to set up on-site technical servicing by Belarusian repairmen.