OREANDA-NEWS. The joint venture Ford Sollers started the production of a new generation of Ford Transit by technology full cycle. To do this, the company upgraded Yelabuga plant - installed equipment of the last generation. To produce the new Ford Transit the company began in the second half of 2014, but it was the SKD assembly, wrote the newspaper "Vedomosti".

All investments in a modernized production line for light commercial vehicles will be more than 100 million Dollars, said President and CEO of Ford Sollers, Ted Kannis. Acting President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, promised to buy for the republic special vehicles of JV: in the line Ford Transit - route buses, "Ambulance and Emergency Medicine", "school bus".

Power of plant Ford Sollers Yelabuga is 85 thousand cars a year, the level of localization at the end of 2014 at Ford Sollers joint venture was 40%. According to the agency "AUTOSTAT", sales of Ford Transit in Russia in I quarter of 2015 fell by 42.2% to 1,229 vehicles. According to a leading analyst of the agency "AUTOSTAT", Azat Timerkhanov, the main competitors Ford Transit can be considered families Citroen Jumper, Peugeot Boxer, Fiat Ducato.

"Obviously, the project began several years ago when the economic situation was different," - says a leading expert of "Finam Management", Dmitry Baranov. Now, in his opinion, the project "is easier and cheaper to complete than to stop halfway." "The logic is that, despite the crisis, we need to continue to update of the lineup, because of the decline in sales followed by an increase," - said the expert. In addition, Mr.Baranov continues, the production of new models allows us to maintain market share. "If the new car has kept the best from previous models, but its technical and consumer characteristics increased, it will be in demand in the market”, - he concluded.