Türkiye is betting on Togg to give the auto industry an electric advantage

On the banks of the Sea of ​​Marmara, there is a gray and turquoise factory built at breakneck speed, producing hundreds of electric cars.

Türkiye hopes its first major electric car maker will put the country in the driving seat of the auto industry.

Inside the factory, robot arms are welding the passenger compartment of the first SUV, the T10X, which was launched last year. After painting, the parts are sent for assembly, before finally passing through an illuminated tunnel to be inspected by workers for defects.

The batteries, made in partnership with Chinese company Farasis Energy, are being assembled in a nearby building.

The factory takes an hour to produce 20 vehicles.

A production manager told AFP, requesting anonymity: “Last year, we produced 20,000 cars without any loss. Tesla produced only 2,000 cars in its first year.”

The manager also praised the factory’s “highly educated” workers, 40% of whom are women.

In half a century, the Marmara region surrounding Istanbul has become one of the world’s leading centers of automobile manufacturing.

Major automakers, including Fiat and Renault, opened their factories there in the early 1970s, and others such as Ford, Toyota, and Hyundai followed suit, taking advantage of Turkey’s location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Car horn in outer space

“They initially invested to supply the domestic market that had for a long time been protected by tariffs,” independent consultant Levent Taylan told AFP.

But after the customs union agreement between the European Union and Turkey entered into force in 1995, which opened the European market to cars made in Turkey, exports rebounded.

“Today, the Turkish automobile industry exports about 70 percent of its production to Western Europe,” Taylan said.

A vast network of 530 automotive subcontractors has also emerged, employing more than 230,000 people, according to Albert Saidam, president of the Turkish Association of Automotive Parts and Components Manufacturers (TAYSAD).

“Most cars around the world contain a part that is produced in Turkey. For example, the first car in space, the Tesla Roadster, was supplied by one of our members,” he told AFP.

In 2018, Tesla boss Elon Musk launched a Roadster into space aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket as a publicity stunt, with the car’s sound system set to play David Bowie’s hit song “Space Oddity.”

In the same year, Togg was founded as a joint venture between four Turkish companies and the country’s Chamber of Commerce to guide the automotive industry towards an electric future.

The market is booming

“The project represents a significant milestone in Turkey’s automotive industry and symbolizes the country’s ambition to become a prominent player in the global electric vehicle market,” Saidam said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make the automaker a point of national pride, with the launch of the T10X model in March 2023 just before the country’s presidential elections.

“We haven’t missed the electric car boat,” he said back in mid-May.

However, Tug says the government’s support is limited to allowing it free use of land for its seaside factory in Gemlik and a commitment to purchase 500 vehicles a year.

Since its launch, the Togg T10X has accounted for nearly a third of electric vehicle sales in Turkey, according to data from the Turkish Automotive Distributors Association (ODMD), with 19,583 vehicles sold in 2023.

And the market is booming. Electric vehicle sales there increased ninefold last year, making the Turkish market larger than Italy and Spain.

Despite Togg’s hopes that the T10X will hit the road in Germany by the end of the year and in France next year, Tylan believes the company still has a long way to go.

He added that the car “is considered expensive and only about 25,000 models are sold annually.”

Taylan said that for a car factory to have a chance at making a profit, it must produce at least “200,000 cars per year.”

© 2024 Agence France-Presse