“They will be dropped entirely, but this won’t happen for a while,” Manturov told the Tass news agency in an interview. “We will act gradually. There will be no bans, but, rather, requirements for a fixed production quota for cleaner cars.”

    He said his ministry believed that more and more Russians will be buying cars powered by gas.

    “I see good prospects for cars running on compressed and liquefied gas – they will be in use in our country for a long time to come,” Manturov told Tass. “There you have real environmentally clean transport. And we have our own gas and lots of the infrastructure is localised.”

    The minister said production of cars and buses running on hydrogen will begin in 2024, but for a time it will not be a question of mass production. The bodies concerned have worked out and submitted to the government outlines of how to develop electric and hydrogen-powered transport. These call for production by 2024 of 28,000 vehicles and by 2030 no less than 10 % of overall production.

    The government estimates the required investment in the programme at 850 billion roubles ($11.44 billion), a figure which has already been increased several times.

    Nearly all foreign companies that currently produce cars in Russia with Internal combustion engines are developing options for localised production of electric vehicles, Manturov said. The Industry and Trade Ministry is counting on Russian manufacturers – Zetta, KAMAZ, UAZ — to pick up the baton.

But for the moment, Manturov acknowledged Russians view electric vehicles as something of an exotic development.