Iran, according to Reuters, has banned the import of new Chevrolet cars only a week after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized the importation of US-built cars. He instead requested the government to support domestic production. Here’s the interesting part: the import deal involved only 200 Chevys, valued at about $7 million.
The semi-official Mehr Iranian news agency claims an official from the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade stated the following: "The person who has registered the car orders has been informed that their import is not allowed. The cars are not in the country yet and were only loaded to be shipped to Iran." We don’t know which specific model(s) were to be imported to Iran, but Khamenei, in his infinite car guy wisdom, further commented that "Even the Americans are not interested in buying such cars because of their weight and high fuel consumption. Why should we import the cars from a bankrupt American factory? This is very odd."
For the record, el Leader Supremo, Chevrolet’s 2016 sales figures have been solid and sales of the new Volt plug-in hybrid, if they continue at their current pace, will see a total of 100,000 Volts (1st and 2nd generation models combined) on the road by this summer.
Related News
