Russia’s car maker AvtoVAZ and the Renault-Nissan alliance will start assembling their Lada Largus cars in February 2012.

AvtoVAZ president Igor Komarov said he hoped that Lada Largus would be a “competitive model,” whose factory-gate price in Russia would be around RUR315 000-RUR450 000 ($9 920 – $14 180), lower than abroad.

Komarov also said that the Renault-Nissan alliance had already signalled their readiness to implement 80%-90% of their new projects at AvtoVAZ plants. The alliance plans to manufacture competitive B-platform models. “It is essential that these models’ production costs in Russia are lower than abroad,” he said.