Nowadays about 15 enterprises are occupied with the production of the car and tractor engines in the territory of Russia. And most propulsion engineering plants are situated in the centre of the European part of the Russian Federation, the Volga and Ural regions.
It is to note that during the recent five-six years the situation in the Russian propulsion engineering has changed significantly. If earlier the gasoline engines constituted the production basis, then now a steady growth of the diesel motors production volume is being registered. AVTOVAZ OJSC has been remaining the largest manufacturer of the gasoline engines in Russia for many years, and then it is followed by Ulyanovsk Motor Plant.
The main diesel motors suppliers in the CIS territory are Yaroslavl Diesel Engine Plant (Avtodisel JSC), KAMAZ-Diesel (Naberezhnye Chelny) and Minsk Motor Plant. All of them have approximately equal ratios in the Russian Federation market. The other enterprises of this branch have managed to occupy less than 1 % of the market.
Production Dynamics during 2007-2009, units
* taking into account TMZ
Source: data of KAMAZ JSC, Avtodisel JSC
Russian Diesel Engine Market Structure, According to Manufacturers, %
The propulsion engineering development is determined in many respects by a tough competition and constantly growing requirements for the fuel economy, size, reliance and resource of the engine. Besides that, the legislative regulations heading for the toxic emissions reduction have been permanently stiffening.
Thus, beginning with 2006 the restrictions were imposed in the territory of the Russian Federation. According to them, it is not allowed to import the vehicles which ecological class is lower than Euro-2. Since January 1, 2008 the Euro-3 norms were put into action in Russia. During the same year the technical regulations “On Requirements for Hazardous (Polluting) Emissions of Vehicles Put in Circulation in the Territory of the Russian Federation” were adopted. According to them, it is obligatory to introduce into the Russian market the vehicles of the Euro-4 and higher class since the early 2010.
Having no time for their own research Russians started purchasing foreign licenses for engines and modern power units, creating joint enterprises. Thus, at Avtodisel in Yaroslavl the production of the heavy DCi11 auto engines under the Renault Trucks license has been organized and at KAMAZ the joint venture with the American diesel motors manufacturer Cummins is functioning and producing power units for Russian trucks. The serial production of the first in the Russian Federation 6-cylinder in-line engines family meeting the Euro-3 norms with the capacity of 311-412 h.p. under the Renault Trucks technological license has been realized since autumn 2007. An estimated output of the plant is 20 thousand units per year.
Simultaneously the research, development and technological work is being carried out for the engine perfection taking into account the new ecological requirements. At the moment the Avtodisel JSC designers with the help of the Ricardo reengineering company (Great Britain) have developed the engine corresponding to the Euro-4 ecological norms. The first batch of the heavy in-line diesel motors marked as YaMZ-651 was produced last year and in 2009 they successfully passed the certification and acceptance tests as a part of the MAZ vehicles. The Euro-4 YaMZ-651 engines serial production is planned to be launched in the third quarter of this year.
At KAMAZ the joint venture with the American diesel motors manufacturer Cummins is functioning and producing power units for Russian trucks. For the Euro-4 engines KAMAZ has chosen the SCR technology on the basis of the Denoxtronic-2 system components by the Bosch company. In October 2009 the joint venture of the Russian-American enterprise Federal Mogul Naberezhnye Chelny was launched to produce parts of the piston-cylinder group for the KAMAZ vehicles. The serial production of the engines corresponding to the international Euro-4 and Euro-5 standards will be possible on the basis of these components.
Zavolzhskiy Motor Plant must become the base for the production of the Fiat F1A engines that will be set in the Fiat Ducato and, probably, the Iveco Daily produced in Russia. It is to remember that in July 2008 SOLLERS JSC signed an agreement on creating a joint venture with the Italian concern Fiat. In this context it is intended to produce at ZMZ up to 90 thousand diesel F1A engines with the displacement of 2.3 l per year. Several samples of the ZMZ-405 engines have already been produced at Zavolzhskiy Motor Plant where proto-typing has been made in the Fiat Ducato underbonnet space and the first engine sample was set as a part of the car for testing. SOLLERS JSC and Fiat Auto have also signed a contract on realizing the first stage of the adaptive works on the ZMZ-40524.10 engine (2.5 l) of the Euro-4 class for the Fiat Ducato.
The quality of the Ulyanovsk Motor Plant’s (UMZ) engine was significantly improved due to the equipment of the components by the world leading manufacturers: nozzles by Bosch and Siemens, throttle position sensors by Bosch and piston rings by Federal Mogul. Such foreign engineering firms as IPT and Ricardo UK Ltd. (Great Britain) took part in working on the engine im-provement and conducting an audit of its construction and possibilities of its development in accordance with the Euro-4 ecological standard.
The creation of the motors new generation is partially financed by the government (the YaMZ-530 project). It concerns creating in Russia the modern production of the middle-sized in-line YaMZ-530 diesel motor corresponding to the world’s best standards. The engine was developed in cooperation with the Austrian engineering firm AVL List GmbH. The power units with the YaMZ-530 family engines are designed as multipurpose and meant to be used as a part of a wide range of machines including the trucks by EU MAZ, Ural, GAZ, the middle-sized and large buses by PAZ, LiAZ (the production of the hybrid power plant on the YaMZ-530 engine basis is also intended to be launched for LiAZes). In addition to it the development of the special diesel motor modifications is planned for the tractor, road building, combine and for special purposes machinery by different manufacturers.
Now in Yaroslavl the GAZ Group is finishing building a new plant meant for the production of this family engines. The planned capacity of the first production line is 40 thousand engines per year with the possibility of the further enhancement of the production program up to 80 thousand units per year. The total sum of the funds allocated to the project (taking into account the 3 billion rubles already invested by the GAZ Group) amounts to 10 billion rubles. Nowadays with the support of the Russian Federation government there has been an agreement signed with Vnesheconombank (VEB) on giving a purpose credit for the project completion. The serial production is planned to be launched in the second half of 2010.
The crisis found the Russian engine manufacturers at the stage of active technological reequipment. After the four-five years of the advancing development since the fourth quarter of 2008 most enterprises in this branch have faced the decrease in demand by dozens of percent. Nevertheless, on the whole, according to the results of 2008, the volume of the diesel engine production by the main CIS manufacturers decreased insignificantly – just by 1 % – down to 208,095 units (in 2007 214,630 diesel motors were produced). Last year the total decrease in the power units production amounted to 2.6 %.
Since the beginning of this year the situation has become worse. According to the results of January-July 2009, the auto gasoline engines production became 2.9 times less in comparison with the same period in 2008 – it decreased to 216 thousand units; the diesel motors production became 3 times less – it decreased to 32 thousand units. Meanwhile, the negative production dynamics was demonstrated by all the enterprises manufacturing power units. Thus, AVTOVAZ reduced the motor production by 62.4 %, KAMAZ – by 60.1 %, ZIL – by 91.3 %, AMUR (Novouralsk) – by 97.7 %, Zavolzhskiy Motor Plant – by 84.0 %, Ulyanovsk Motor Plant – by 36.8 %, Tutaev Motor Plant – by 50.8 %, Avtodisel JSC (Yaroslavl) – by 72.6 %, Nizhny Novgorod Motors LLC – by 90.4 %, ChTZ-Uraltrac – by 87.2 %, Vladimir Tractor Plant – by 86.8 %, Altai Diesel Plant – by 61.1 %.
Nowadays the strategic objective of most companies in this sphere is to survive. Some are planning to keep their positions but it is really possible to reach the objective to grow against the background of weakening and leaving the market competitors.
