General Motors Co, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover temporarily stopped selling cars in Russia this week, deciding that taking a timeout from the market was the best way to deal with the rouble's collapse.
Automakers are battling a more than 40 per cent drop in the value of the rouble since June, Russia's biggest financial crisis since 1998. In recent weeks, Russian customers has been snapping up Porsches and other cars to convert their savings into something tangible. That temporary boon for the industry soon turned to a liability as the rouble's drop ate into what the manufacturers got for their vehicles.
