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How do wrecked cars from the USA end up in Russia and is it possible to buy them?
How do wrecked cars from the US end up in Russia and can you buy them? Georgia sells hundreds of cars to Russia that were in accidents in the US and other countries.
In 2023, Georgia exported $2 billion worth of cars, mostly to former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia, from where cars can be imported into Russia at minimal cost. What's wrong with these cars?
Thousands of cars that crash in the US end up being sold in Russia. On the outskirts of Rustavi, an industrial city 20 km from Tbilisi, there is a huge parking lot the size of 40 football fields where thousands of cars are for sale.
Here you can find almost any car: Mercedes, Porsche, Jaguar, Toyota, and more recently Tesla, writes the BBC (the media is blocked in Russia). According to official data, last year Georgia imported cars worth more than $3 billion and exported more than $2 billion, mainly to the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia. These are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. All these countries are part of the EAEU, so cars registered in these countries can be imported to Russia with minimal costs.
Local entrepreneurs involved in this business do not want any contact with Russian media. But here is what Business FM wrote on condition of anonymity:
On the Telegram channel "Automatic Choice of Georgia", literally in the last 24 hours, a 2021 Ford EcoSport was sold, the last car with a 1.0 engine and 15,000 km mileage, for 1.24 million rubles. Automotive expert Artem Bobtsov says:
Data from the National Statistics Office of Georgia shows that cars are exported to Russia. They reported that in 2022, Georgia exported 7,350 used cars to Kazakhstan, and in 2023, it has already exported almost 40,000 used cars, or 5.5 times more.