Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan pose with employees of TOGG before the opening ceremony of a factory to begin the mass production of its first domestic vehicle TOGG, in Gemlik, Turkiye, October 29, 2022. Murat Cetinmuhurdar
Turkiye rolled out its first domestically-produced electric vehicle at a ceremony on Saturday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to highlight economic successes ahead of elections next year.
"Turkiye’s domestic car, Togg, will hit the roads of Europe with all of its models,” Erdogan said after driving the first vehicle to leave the production line. "They will say ‘crazy Turks’ are coming,” he added. Turkiye has inked a deal with one of the world’s most prominent companies to build a lithium ion battery factory near Togg’s production site in Bursa, Erdogan said. He did not name the company.
Sales of the first Togg model, the C-segment SUV, are set to begin at the end of the third quarter of 2023. Turkiye’s Automobile Joint Venture Group, the consortium of local companies behind the "domestic car” project, aims to start producing other models in following years. The plan is to export the Turkish EV to Europe and then the rest of the world after 15-18 months of domestic sales only.
"The production capacity we have built at the moment is 100,000 vehicles per year,” said Gurcan Karakas, CEO of the joint venture. But the initial target is to produce 17,000-18,000 C-SUV’s in 2023 and increase output gradually, he added. The price of Togg is not determined yet, but is expected to be in February, when preliminary sales begin.
The ruling party wants to show off major projects ahead of elections scheduled for June 2023 to contrast with the country’s deepening economic woes amid soaring inflation driven by the central bank’s unorthodox interest-rate cuts.
The state has backed the project with tax cuts, free land, low borrowing costs and a government purchase guarantee of 30,000 vehicles a year until the end of 2035. Car prices have skyrocketed this year due to inflation.
Car sales in Turkiye fell 8.2% in the first nine months of 2022 from the same period last year, according to industry association ODD. The slump was driven by the lira’s 28% drop against the dollar so far this year, making it the second-worst performer in emerging markets.
But the decline in the lira has helped boost exports. Turkiye is an important production automotive hub and a major exporter to Europe. Major car makers including Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Mercedes-Benz AG have factories in the country. In September, Turkiye’s automotive production rose 20.5% as auto exports climbed 11.3% yearly in dollar terms.
