In the Soviet Union, its products used various names, including Zhiguli, Oka, and Sputnik, which were phased out in the 1990s and replaced by Lada for the Russian market.

The VAZ plant was established in 1966 by the Soviet government in cooperation with the Italian car manufacturer Fiat.

Viktor Nikolaevich Polyakov (later Minister of Automobile Industry) was named as director, and Vladimir Solovyov as chief designer.

[7] The plant intended to produce popular economy cars that would meet the growing demand for personal transport.

A new town, Tolyatti, named after Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti, was built around the plant.

[11] The VAZ plant trialled many of the new automation systems that Fiat was planning to introduce in its own factories, and was described as "ultra-modern" by the Chicago Tribune in a 1973 article.

The VAZ-2105, based on the Fiat 124 mechanicals, but modernised and restyled, was introduced in 1979 and marketed outside the Soviet Union under the Riva or Laika trade names, depending on the country.

In 1995, the first full—fledged LADA car center was opened in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny and started direct deliveries from the automobile plant.

In May 1980, a series of mass strikes at the Togliatti plant involving hundreds of thousands of workers was reported by the western press.

[26] By the late 1980s, AvtoVAZ was suffering from the deterioration of its capital goods, such as tools and machinery, resulting from insufficient levels of investment over a long period.

[28] In June 1991, Bear Stearns was hired by the Soviet government to conduct an appraisal of AvtoVAZ and negotiate a venture with a Western partner, in preparation for the privatization of the company.

[32] As with many other privatized post-Soviet companies, the financial situation at AvtoVAZ was dire, with workers being unpaid for months at a time.

[34] Despite the state of the Russian economy at the time, demand for AvtoVAZ cars remained buoyant, but widespread corruption in the distribution network led the company to accumulate massive debts.

[36] In 1997, the Ministry of Internal Affairs launched Operation Cyclone,[34] an investigation that ultimately uncovered evidence that gangsters connected to AvtoVAZ had carried out at least 65 murders of company managers, dealers, and business rivals.

In the second half of the 1990s, some efforts were made to improve the quality of production, but in 1999, nearly 50,000 cases of cars were still being assembled with missing parts.

[38] Increased competition from foreign car manufacturers had the company's share of the Russian market fall to 49% in 2002, compared to 56% four years earlier.

The Kalina had been originally designed in the early 1990s, and its launch was repeatedly delayed, exemplifying the company's difficulty in bringing products to market in time.

[37] In October 2005, control of the company, which had until then been exercised by subsidiaries of AvtoVAZ connected to Kadannikov, was transferred to Rosoboronexport.

[41] In 2005 it was estimated in a documentary created by Channel One Russia that about 500 people were killed between 1990 and 2005 during conflicts between police and criminals related to AvtoVAZ.

The Documentary was released same year when Rosoboronexport took over AvtoVAZ with the support of 300 police officers during the extraordinary general meeting.

[citation needed] The plant was set to open in 2016 and built in Ust-Kamenogorsk, in the eastern part of the country, to produce around 120,000 cars a year.

[76] In October 2016, Renault invested $1.33 billion in another recapitalization of AvtoVAZ, this time without involvement from Nissan, making the company a subsidiary of the French group.

[86] In January 2021, following a company revamp, Renault said it would integrate Lada and sister Dacia brands into a new business unit.

The company issued a press release blaming 'the ongoing crisis in the supply of electronic components.

[93] In November 2022, the controlling shareholder of AvtoVAZ, NAMI, acquired Nissan's Saint Petersburg facilities (including its assembly plant) for a "symbolic price" with a six-year buyback option.

[13] As of May 2022[update], AvtoVAZ's owner is Lada Auto Holding, which is a joint venture between two state enterprises, NAMI and Rostec.

[97] Lada Izhevsk, a company established in 1965 and that adopted its present name in 2017,[98][99] has one assembly line and produced 96,000 cars in 2016.

Economic instability in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, combined with tightening emissions regulations and increasing stringency of safety legislation, triggered the withdrawal of AvtoVAZ from most Western markets by late 1997.

Lada products are marketed in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Lebanon, Moldova, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Serbia, Syria, Peru, and Jordan.

[125] In 2021, Lada Sport had a one-off entry for the final race of the TCR-spec World Touring Car Cup at the Sochi Autodrom.