17 ms·

When Chevrolet Ruled Uzbekistan (2019)

56 points by bilifuduo 6y ago

Maksadbek 6y ago
I am from this country and what is written there is exactly as it is. It is very hard or impossible to come to a car store to buy a car and go back with that car home in one day. You must first make an order and wait for months(usually 4-6) while your car be ready. Moreover, if you want to buy a car from foreign manufacturers (Mersedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, etc) you have to pay 2X of its original price.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Do you still live there?
  - Maksadbek 6y ago
    No, I relocated to Moscow 4 years ago. But I visit my parents once a year. That's why I still know what is happening there.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- ConsiderCrying 6y ago
  Has it not changed at all since the article's publication a bit over a year ago? The author expresses hopes of the new leadership changing things at the end but I take it that didn't happen?
  - Maksadbek 6y ago
    Yes, the situation is slowly changing and currently you don't have to pay a bribe (it is called a "shapka" in article) to buy a new car from a car stores. BTW: "shapka" or "шапка" (from Russian) is translated to English as a "hat" or "cap". That means, when you buy a thing, you need to also pay for its hat too.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    New leadership is now showing its utter incompetence in handling the Covid crisis (official death numbers are severely undercounted, 3x-30x; hospitals are full). It is not nearly as good as their impression they project outside the country.
- bfirsh 6y ago
  I visited the country a couple of years ago, and a thing that puzzled me was why almost all the cars were white. Do you know why this is? Some said it was because it is better at keeping the cars cool, but this doesn't explain why surrounding Kazakhstan/Tajikistan/etc had different color cars. The best explanation I heard was the president liked white cars, so only allowed white cars to get made. This seems most plausible to me, and seems like similar things happened in Turkmenistan: https://www.motor1.com/news/226932/turkmenistan-president-bans-black-cars/ https://www.motor1.com/news/226932/turkmenistan-president-ba...
  - Maksadbek 6y ago
    You're right, 90% of cars are white coloured. Honestly I have no idea why it is that. Prabably this worth some research. But usually when my friends wanted to buy a car, they chose the white color by the following criteria: it does not heat much like other colors on the sun. If we take into account that there are not much parking lots and garages with a roof, white colored car is the best choice.
    - xenospn 6y ago
      In Israel, people say it's "easier to sell a white car".
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    White cars are very popular in hot, dry climates (like Uzbekistan) because they don't absorb as much heat in the desert run. For another example of this in a much freer car market, see Israel, where I'd guess a solid 80-90% of cars on the road are white.
  - moltar 6y ago
    It’s pretty much the same in SEA. Because it’s hot. White cars heat up much less.
- xenospn 6y ago
  Israel is the same. (at least it was when I lived there, pre-2012).
- zerr 6y ago
  I assume those who buy from car stores (i.e. new cars) are a tiny minority there.
- erikbye 6y ago
  > Moreover, if you want to buy a car from foreign manufacturers (Mersedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, etc) you have to pay 2X of its original price. Funny, in Norway it's more like 3X.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Den sista sovjetrepubliken (sorry :-)
trhway 6y ago
This is final assembly only, an absolute minimum required by law to qualify out of heavily tariffed foreign made car category (the countries of former USSR, except for Baltic ones, like to highly tax foreign import in order to supposedly protect "domestic manufacturer" - as result nobody has good car building industry). There have been several such Daewoo/Chevrolet plants across the former USSR. Russia for example also builds Ford and BMW that way. For example back in mid-199x Elabuga (city in Russia) Chevrolet Blazer factory had extremely sweet conditions on the Chevrolet Blazers to be assembled there - basically attach the bumpers and some other details - it took 1 hour for 3 workers per car.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  Russia used to have few car manufacturers and produced almost every car part rather than importing it. After USSR collapse those cars were not very competitive, especially with used cars from Japan and Europe, unfortunately, so those factories either died or optimized (like VAZ which is part of Renault-Nissan now and is moving to just build western Renault designs rather than develop and improve their LADA cars). That's quite tragic situation, plenty of people are losing jobs, country is losing an expertise. I'm living in Kazakhstan and we have foreign import tax and "localized builds" (very minimal work is done). But actually we're in economic union with Russia, so most of new cars are built in Russia and imported without much taxes. So it's not that bad here. AFAIK Uzbekistan recently joined EAEU, so, I guess, situation should improve over few years.
  - trhway 6y ago
    >Russia used to have few car manufacturers and produced almost every car part rather than importing it. yes and no. Significant share (seems most) of major USSR car manufacturers started as a transfer of technology deal and improvement on its own has been pretty small and incremental since then. VAZ - Fiat (196x), GAZ - Ford (193x), AZLK/Moskvich was "refreshed" by the complete factory transfer of the Opel's one right after the WWII, ZIL - original 1917 and total re-equipment in 193x - to build Italian and American cars under license (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZiL#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZiL#History), UAZ models naturally trace back to the GAZ, and its most known and widely used - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469 - hasn't changed much in 50 years. KAMAZ though doesn't look like an outright transfer and is kind of local success story, yet also not much improvements in 50 years (probably for the same reason of absence of any real competition as the USSR planned economy basically segmented manufacturers into their own quasi-monopoly segments) .
bawana 6y ago
Are tractors heavily tariffed? Motorcycles?
- Maksadbek 6y ago
  Every vehicle is heavily tariffed. Maybe that is the reason why you very rarely see someone on a Harley-Davidson or Triumph. Tractors are usually imported by the government.
- nicbou 6y ago
  I had a motorcycle accident in Tajikistan. No insurance. It just doesn't exist there. Different country, but similar situation. I was debating getting rid of the motorcycle vs fixing it and going home. The latter isn't so easy when you are this far. The former would incur a 800€ import fee (on a heavily damaged 6000€ bike). The process was far from simple and involved greasing a few hands. This process is documented by Mongol Rally participants who had to pay similar fees for 500€ cars. In the end I limped to Kazakhstan, got the bike hastily fixed and rode back to Germany. 20000 km later it's mostly fixed and it runs fine. Most importantly, I didn't get hurt.
- bawana 6y ago
  I guess having 'kit' cars is also a no go. Here in the US, you can buy a chassis and body and all the parts to make a car as part of a kit. Putting it together is below the ability of most Americans but not all. I imagine uzbekis are the same, where there are some really proficient people who happen to be farmers or something else.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

56 points by bilifuduo 6y ago

I am from this country and what is written there is exactly as it is. It is very hard or impossible to come to a car store to buy a car and go back with that car home in one day. You must first make an order and wait for months(usually 4-6) while your car be ready. Moreover, if you want to buy a car from foreign manufacturers (Mersedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, etc) you have to pay 2X of its original price.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Do you still live there?
- Maksadbek 6y ago
  No, I relocated to Moscow 4 years ago. But I visit my parents once a year. That's why I still know what is happening there.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ConsiderCrying 6y ago
Has it not changed at all since the article's publication a bit over a year ago? The author expresses hopes of the new leadership changing things at the end but I take it that didn't happen?
- Maksadbek 6y ago
  Yes, the situation is slowly changing and currently you don't have to pay a bribe (it is called a "shapka" in article) to buy a new car from a car stores. BTW: "shapka" or "шапка" (from Russian) is translated to English as a "hat" or "cap". That means, when you buy a thing, you need to also pay for its hat too.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  New leadership is now showing its utter incompetence in handling the Covid crisis (official death numbers are severely undercounted, 3x-30x; hospitals are full). It is not nearly as good as their impression they project outside the country.
bfirsh 6y ago
I visited the country a couple of years ago, and a thing that puzzled me was why almost all the cars were white. Do you know why this is? Some said it was because it is better at keeping the cars cool, but this doesn't explain why surrounding Kazakhstan/Tajikistan/etc had different color cars. The best explanation I heard was the president liked white cars, so only allowed white cars to get made. This seems most plausible to me, and seems like similar things happened in Turkmenistan: https://www.motor1.com/news/226932/turkmenistan-president-bans-black-cars/ https://www.motor1.com/news/226932/turkmenistan-president-ba...
- Maksadbek 6y ago
  You're right, 90% of cars are white coloured. Honestly I have no idea why it is that. Prabably this worth some research. But usually when my friends wanted to buy a car, they chose the white color by the following criteria: it does not heat much like other colors on the sun. If we take into account that there are not much parking lots and garages with a roof, white colored car is the best choice.
  - xenospn 6y ago
    In Israel, people say it's "easier to sell a white car".
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  White cars are very popular in hot, dry climates (like Uzbekistan) because they don't absorb as much heat in the desert run. For another example of this in a much freer car market, see Israel, where I'd guess a solid 80-90% of cars on the road are white.
- moltar 6y ago
  It’s pretty much the same in SEA. Because it’s hot. White cars heat up much less.
xenospn 6y ago
Israel is the same. (at least it was when I lived there, pre-2012).
zerr 6y ago
I assume those who buy from car stores (i.e. new cars) are a tiny minority there.
erikbye 6y ago
> Moreover, if you want to buy a car from foreign manufacturers (Mersedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, etc) you have to pay 2X of its original price. Funny, in Norway it's more like 3X.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Den sista sovjetrepubliken (sorry :-)

trhway 6y ago

This is final assembly only, an absolute minimum required by law to qualify out of heavily tariffed foreign made car category (the countries of former USSR, except for Baltic ones, like to highly tax foreign import in order to supposedly protect "domestic manufacturer" - as result nobody has good car building industry). There have been several such Daewoo/Chevrolet plants across the former USSR. Russia for example also builds Ford and BMW that way. For example back in mid-199x Elabuga (city in Russia) Chevrolet Blazer factory had extremely sweet conditions on the Chevrolet Blazers to be assembled there - basically attach the bumpers and some other details - it took 1 hour for 3 workers per car.

vbezhenar 6y ago
Russia used to have few car manufacturers and produced almost every car part rather than importing it. After USSR collapse those cars were not very competitive, especially with used cars from Japan and Europe, unfortunately, so those factories either died or optimized (like VAZ which is part of Renault-Nissan now and is moving to just build western Renault designs rather than develop and improve their LADA cars). That's quite tragic situation, plenty of people are losing jobs, country is losing an expertise. I'm living in Kazakhstan and we have foreign import tax and "localized builds" (very minimal work is done). But actually we're in economic union with Russia, so most of new cars are built in Russia and imported without much taxes. So it's not that bad here. AFAIK Uzbekistan recently joined EAEU, so, I guess, situation should improve over few years.
- trhway 6y ago
  >Russia used to have few car manufacturers and produced almost every car part rather than importing it. yes and no. Significant share (seems most) of major USSR car manufacturers started as a transfer of technology deal and improvement on its own has been pretty small and incremental since then. VAZ - Fiat (196x), GAZ - Ford (193x), AZLK/Moskvich was "refreshed" by the complete factory transfer of the Opel's one right after the WWII, ZIL - original 1917 and total re-equipment in 193x - to build Italian and American cars under license (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZiL#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZiL#History), UAZ models naturally trace back to the GAZ, and its most known and widely used - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469 - hasn't changed much in 50 years. KAMAZ though doesn't look like an outright transfer and is kind of local success story, yet also not much improvements in 50 years (probably for the same reason of absence of any real competition as the USSR planned economy basically segmented manufacturers into their own quasi-monopoly segments) .

bawana 6y ago

Are tractors heavily tariffed? Motorcycles?

Maksadbek 6y ago
Every vehicle is heavily tariffed. Maybe that is the reason why you very rarely see someone on a Harley-Davidson or Triumph. Tractors are usually imported by the government.
nicbou 6y ago
I had a motorcycle accident in Tajikistan. No insurance. It just doesn't exist there. Different country, but similar situation. I was debating getting rid of the motorcycle vs fixing it and going home. The latter isn't so easy when you are this far. The former would incur a 800€ import fee (on a heavily damaged 6000€ bike). The process was far from simple and involved greasing a few hands. This process is documented by Mongol Rally participants who had to pay similar fees for 500€ cars. In the end I limped to Kazakhstan, got the bike hastily fixed and rode back to Germany. 20000 km later it's mostly fixed and it runs fine. Most importantly, I didn't get hurt.
bawana 6y ago
I guess having 'kit' cars is also a no go. Here in the US, you can buy a chassis and body and all the parts to make a car as part of a kit. Putting it together is below the ability of most Americans but not all. I imagine uzbekis are the same, where there are some really proficient people who happen to be farmers or something else.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]