Lada West Togliatti predecessor was GM-AvtoVAZ, a joint venture created in early 2001 for producing the VAZ-2123 (Niva II) off-road vehicle under the name Chevrolet Niva. Initially, the venture had three co-owners: AvtoVAZ and General Motors (GM) each owned 41.6% of the shares, and the remaining 16.8% belonged to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). In 2012, the EBRD withdrew from the venture, selling its shares equally to partners.[2]
In December 2019, GM sold its stake to AvtoVAZ, making GM-AvtoVAZ a wholly owned subsidiary of the latter. The former venture kept the right to continue using the Chevrolet marque for a certain amount of time.[3][4] On 15 April 2020, AvtoVAZ officially dropped the GM-AvtoVAZ name and re-incorporated the former venture as "JSC Lada West Togliatti".[5]
In July 2020, Lada West Togliatti stopped assembling Chevrolet-badged Nivas, adopting instead the Lada marque.[4] In December 2020, Lada West Togliatti introduced the Niva Travel, a revised Niva.[6]
In July 2021, the Lada Travel production was transferred to the main AvtoVAZ's Tolyatti plant.[7] AvtoVAZ CEO Nicolas Maure clarified that the Lada West Togliatti production would be "suspended" but the plant was to be neither closed nor sold.[8]
Leadership
The first general director of Lada West Togliatti was Romuald Rytvinski who also hold the same position while it was a joint venture with GM. In December 2020, he was replaced by Yuri Skulsky, the then human resources chief of the company.[9]
