(Source: http://autoinfo.com.ua/news)

Yo-Engineering Company projecting "Yo-mobile", transferred to FSUE NAMI all the design documentation and the exclusive rights to know-hows in a number of designs.

Yo-Mobile hybrid project publicly announced by Mikhail Prokhorov in 2010, which received more than 200 thousand pre-orders, is actually closed.

The agency was informed by ONEXIM Group that Yo-Engineering Company, which deals with Yo-Mobile project, transferred to FSUE NAMI all the design documentation and the exclusive rights to know-hows in car's body and chassis design. The agreement on the transfer of rights was signed on April 3. The deal cost symbolic € 1. ONEKSIM Investment Director Valery Senko explained that "Russian car market conditions and the overall economic situation have changed significantly.

Weakening of the ruble has dramatically increased the cost of production," since most of the equipment was planned to be imported. Since 2010, "the project parameters have changed. Its budget could be € 450 million," but "several hundred million euros" have already been spent for researches. Against the background of falling demand, the inefficiency of the project became apparent. Therefore it was decided to transfer the groundwork to the state.

Yo-Auto will retain only the "Yo" brand. "We received offers from foreign companies to sell the technology, but there was taken a principled decision to leave it in Russia," Senko stated. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Alexey Rakhmanov told "Kommersant" that the Ministry and NAMI "gratefully embraced the transfer of the technologies. "We will analyze their findings and then will decide on what specific projects they can be useful for," Rakhmanov summed up.