Mikhail Prokhorov opted out of further work on Yo-Mobile, often referred to as the “people's car”, and the ONEXIM investment group, which belongs to the magnate, sold the project for the price of €1. However, the trademark rights still belong to the Russian businessman. From now on the owner of this Yo-project is the Russian scientific automotive institute (NAMI).
Let us remind that the company had plans to build three types of hybrid vehicles — a hatchback, a van and a cross-coupé. These people’s cars with the price tag of 350,000–400,000 RUB (approx. €7,000–8,000) were first announced to arrive in 2012, then in 2014, and now... now the project is sold out.
“Due to the current economic climate, at the time when the automotive market is down, it becomes impossible to go ahead with the project of car manufacturing and make a profit”, said Onexim Group CEO Dmitry Razumov.
Now all the groundwork will be used by NAMI for their in-house projects. “Great work has been done by the participants of the Yo-Mobile project. All their know-hows will be preserved. NAMI will use yo-mobile’s groundwork in our current activities and future projects. The question “how” will be answered in the due course of the time”, said NAMI deputy CEO Andrey Garmai.
As reported by RIA News, scientific supervisor of the national research university Higher School of Economics Yevgeny Yasin assumes that AvtoVAZ has already occupied the niche Yo-Mobile was targeting at. Indeed, maybe we had enough of yo-mobiles and Mikhail Prokhorov can always come up with another idea where to invest his millions. Hopefully, Marussia does not catch his eye...
