The Yandex.Taxi service turned to AvtoVAZ, Chinese car manufacturers BAIC Group and Chery, and the Belarusian carmaker Unison with a request to supply vehicles for partner leasing companies. Forbes writes about it.

In a letter to AvtoVAZ President Maxim Sokolov, Yandex Business Development Director Ivan Zapolsky reports that Russian taxi companies are facing a serious shortage of cars and spare parts. In the same letter, he writes that the Yandex taxi fleet has long been using Lada cars, which have proven themselves to be “reliable vehicles”. In total, Yandex needs 50,000 vehicles annually to upgrade its taxi fleet.

According to a Forbes source familiar with the details of the negotiations, in this way Yandex is trying to avoid the imminent shortage of cars, which may come in a year. The company plans to act as an intermediary between taxi companies and car manufacturers. For the first, it guarantees the availability of vehicles, and for the second, the demand for large quantities of cars.

After Russia attacked Ukraine, the Russian auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some of the enterprises closed, some suspended their activities in Russia. The sanctions imposed on Russia have shown that domestic manufacturers have not yet learned how to make electronics, bearings, airbags and seat belts, automatic transmissions, engines, and so on. Read about how the war destroyed the Russian auto industry in six months in The Insider.