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Prokhorov ready to pump $225m into LNG-gas hybrid auto |
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Oleg Kouzbit, Online News Managing Editor
In a bid to challenge the supremacy of gasoline-only vehicles on Russian roads Onexim Group president Mikhail Prokhorov has pledged $225m for a new gen hybrid passenger car. The prospective vehicle will run on either gasoline or LNG and might even share its energy to power small houses. Onexim is working with its St. Pete industrial partner Yarovit to finalize plans. But with only several LNG fuel stations in the entire country, the partnership has more to build than just an innovative car.
In February Marchmont reported Onexim Group’s plans to design and build Russia’s first serial hybrid passenger vehicle. Onexim president Mikhail Prokhorov said he would partner with St. Petersburg-based Yarovit Motors.
Mr. Prokhorov and Yarovit Motors chairman Andrei Biryukov officially told journalists last week that by early 2011 several operational prototypes of their ‘direct-action hybrid’ running on gasoline or LNG would be ready.
The Onexim president and the Yarovit management pledged about $225m to design and build the new car platform and assemble pre-production models. How much the partners will need to build a plant and who will pay for this has yet to be specified, but Mr. Prokhorov told journalists that construction will start in January 2011 and by late 2012 full-scale production with a capacity of 10,000 vehicles a year will begin.
In February, St. Petersburg was mentioned as a most likely production site. Now the project planners appear to have more than one place in mind and might seek a site in Togliatti, home of AvtoVAZ, to save construction costs.
Light, efficient, no battery and a single fits all chassis
The future hybrid’s technical characteristics call for a car with a modest 70 horsepower and a curb weight of just 1,540 pounds—a reported 40% lighter than any other small vehicle currently produced.
Its 220 pound lightweight aluminum welded frame is expected to be clad with basalt fiber panels. The goal is to make a single chassis able to be fitted to family of vehicles—a van, sedan, a compact SUV or even light truck.
The first vehicles will be reportedly powered by NSU’s Wankel engine, the company that developed the rotary engine. For later-stage serial production the Wankel will be replaced by gas mini-turbines.
The vehicle won’t need a battery, Yarovit’s Biryukov said. The engine will send power to the generator directly—enough to also power small external appliances used in summer houses.
The ‘Prokhorov hybrid’ is expected to have a cruising range of up to 400km and a maximum speed of 120km/h—suitable enough for most intra-city driving. For the working commuter, the car makes a lot of sense, but it is hardly appealing to younger drivers, experts at Auto.mail believe.
A bargain at $13,200?
The prospective hybrid will have a base price as low as $13,200, the partners estimate. It’s a low-end price similar to small new gasoline-only cars built in Russia; but being able to switch between gas and LNG gives the Prokhorov a whole different kind of cache.
The Onexim-Yarovit group plans to focus more on LNG versions, because it is cheaper, at later production stages.
Despite the technical innovation, some industry insiders feel the hybrid is little more than “a whimsical imagination of the super-rich” rather than a serious manufacturing business.
Onexim disagrees. It admits that its gas/LNG hybrid is a high-risk undertaking and the company’s first venture project in mechanical engineering. But they cite that their management is one of Russia’s most experienced industrial and financial groups.
221 natural gas stations for a 142m country
But long before the car hits dealerships, what needs to be done is make sure future drivers can find the LNG stations they will need to fuel the car.
According to Auto.mail, there are only 221 natural gas stations in all of Russia, 30 of which are in Moscow. Vastly populated areas in Russia’s east or south have no LNG station at all. At some stations there’s only methane—a much more dangerous and less convenient fuel than the more standard butane-propane gas.
Get gas or pass
Onexim is aware of the problem and says it hopes both the RF and oil companies will help it build and promote LNG as an energy-saving alternative and an environmentally sound investment. Prokhorov is apparently confident they will.
Unless natural gas stations are launched at least in Russia’s largest cities by 2012 and on the most important interregional highways at a 300-400km distance, analysts feel the Onexim president’s venture will fail.
Onexim CEO Dmitry Razumov appears to recognize the enormous challenge ahead. He told the media last week that his firm was creating “…a fundamentally new business with broad prospects for development that a number of Russia’s science-intensive industries will benefit from….”
What he left unsaid was whether or not these other businesses had the same deep pockets of a Mikhail Prokhorov to be able to commercialize such innovation successfully.
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