"Do you want checkers or should you drive?": The Ministry of Industry and Trade announced the permitted vehicles for taxis.

The reaction from taxi drivers and fleet owners is unanimous: the Ministry of Industry and Trade simply mixed up the dates, deciding that April Fool's Day pranks were acceptable on October 1st! The list of taxi vehicles turned out to be so short and obviously odd:

"Of the 20 models approved for taxi use, 10 are essentially spoilers, included for the sake of quantity," says auto expert Igor Lemeshev, proposing to narrow the list by eliminating models that are clearly unsuitable for taxi use.

Both UAZs can be removed from the list. The Hunter is suitable for transporting hooligans detained by the police, but not taxi passengers. This ancient all-terrain vehicle with springs offers zero comfort, zero control, and zero safety. The Patriot is slightly better in terms of amenities, but it's not suitable for intensive use and 100,000-kilometer-per-year mileages—it will spend more time in repairs than it's used for. Moreover, both UAZs burn 20 liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers or more. Therefore, they are simply unprofitable for taxi drivers.

They also don't need the "legendary" Nivas with two doors instead of four. It's hard to imagine how elderly or overweight passengers would have to get into the back seat or how to get them out in the event of a serious accident.

Sollers SP7 and Voyah Dream are expensive hybrid minivans priced between five and eight million rubles. As taxis, these vehicles are a niche segment for business class customers, but they won't be a game-changer for mass transportation.

Cars under the Lipetsk-based Evolute brand, with the exception of the I-SKY hybrid, are fully electric and depend on the number of charging stations in a given city. Just like the Moskvich-3 with the E index. But there are entire regions of Russia where commuter trains are unheard of; there's simply no place to charge them en masse.

Thus, the actual list includes six Lada models and three Moskvich models. But we ask a reasonable question: is the former AZLK capable of producing not 15,000 cars per year, but ten times more, to meet the rapidly growing demand of taxi fleets?

And these needs are truly enormous. According to the NAPI analytical center, the Russian taxi fleet comprises 791,400 passenger cars. Half of these were purchased between 2022 and 2025. With the average service life of taxi vehicles being 40 months, replacement of most of them is inevitable soon.

As we can see, AvtoVAZ cars lead the list, but occupy a share of only 15 percent, while the combined share of foreign cars is 85 percent, and the addition of two Chinese brands – Chery and Haval – makes their share equal to that of the domestic product.

Unfortunately for the Volga Automobile Plant, both prominent Chinese companies have expanded production of their cars to Russia. Recently, Industry and Trade Minister Alikhanov cited the example of Haval, which built not only an assembly plant but also an engine plant in the Tula region and is currently building auto component production facilities. However, localized Solaris, Tenet, and Haval models will not be allowed to serve as taxis! Even with localized production in Russia, they were not included in the Ministry of Industry and Trade's list of approved vehicles.

The solution is simple. The Ministry of Industry and Trade's decision states that in order to include a vehicle in the regional register of passenger taxis, one of the following requirements must now be met:

The Tula project "Khavala" has been developing since 2019 and therefore does not meet the second point, while the non-localized "Moskvich" does.

"This is a neat bureaucratic move to exclude AvtoVAZ's competitor from the taxi market," says expert Igor Lemeshev. "Probably because Haval is 100 percent Chinese-owned."

Indeed, data from the legal entity register shows that the owners of the Tula plant are citizens of China:

True, the Ministry of Industry and Trade's list isn't final, and they promise to add other models assembled in Russia. Fortunately, Minister Alikhanov counted as many as 52 of them! But this doesn't make matters any easier for taxi companies, who are selling off their cars deemed "unfit" by the Russian authorities. Even Sergei Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, predicts that the introduction of new geolocation rules for taxis could lead to up to 200,000 drivers leaving the market.

The loss of staff will likely lead to a decrease in the availability of taxi services and higher fares. Analysts predict a rise in the illegal market, where orders will be placed through social media, on the street, or through less-than-legal apps, which will negatively impact passenger convenience and safety.

Meanwhile, AvtoVAZ, which unveiled taxi versions of its vehicles at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) this summer, is preparing for a generous gift in the form of a sharp increase in sales.

For now, however, the Tolyatti plant has switched to a four-day week, awaiting a sale of inventory, which Russians, for some reason, have not purchased throughout 2025.