Source: AFP
On the shores of the Sea of Marmara, a gray and turquoise factory built at breakneck speed churns out electric cars by the hundreds.
Turkey hopes its first major electric car manufacturer will put the country at the forefront of the automotive industry.
Inside the factory, robot arms are welding the passenger compartment of its first SUV, the T10X, which was launched last year. After painting, the parts are then sent off for assembly, before finally passing through a light tunnel to be inspected by workers for imperfections.
The batteries, manufactured in collaboration with Chinese manufacturer Farasis Energy, are assembled in an adjacent building.
It takes one hour for the factory to produce 20 vehicles.
“Last year, we built 20,000 vehicles without any loss. Tesla only produced 2,000 in the first year,” a production manager told AFP on condition of anonymity.
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The manager also praised the factory’s “highly educated” workers, 40% of whom are women.
In half a century, the Marmara region around Istanbul has become one of the leading centers of the global automotive industry.
Major carmakers such as Fiat and Renault opened factories there in the early 1970s, with others such as Ford, Toyota and Hyundai following, taking advantage of Turkey’s position at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Car horn in space
Source: AFP
“Initially they invested to feed the local market, which for a long time was protected by tariffs,” independent consultant Levent Thailan told AFP.
But after the EU-Turkey Customs Union agreement came into force in 1995, opening up the European market to cars made in Turkey, exports increased.
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“Today the Turkish automotive industry exports about 70 percent of its production to Western Europe,” Taylan said.
A huge network of 530 automotive subcontractors has also been established, employing more than 230,000 people, according to Albert Saydam, President of the Turkish Auto Parts and Spare Parts Manufacturers Association (TAYSAD).
“Most cars around the world have a spare part produced in Turkey. For example, the horn of (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 on a heavy Falcon rocket as a publicity stunt, with the car’s sound system playing David Bowie’s hit “Space Oddity” on loop.
That same year, Togg was founded as a joint venture between four Turkish companies and the country’s chamber of commerce to steer its automotive industry toward an electric future.
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The market is booming
Source: AFP
“The project represents an important milestone in Turkey’s automotive industry and symbolizes the country’s ambition to become a prominent player in the global electric vehicle market,” said Saydam.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to make the automaker a point of national pride, with the T10X model launched in March 2023 just before the country’s presidential election.
“We haven’t missed the boat on electric cars,” he said again in mid-May.
But Togg says the government’s support is limited to allowing it free use of the land for Gemlik’s seaside factory and a commitment to buy 500 vehicles a year.
Since its launch, the Togg T10X has taken almost a third of electric car sales in Turkey, according to data from the Turkish Automobile Distributors Association (ODMD), with 19,583 vehicles sold in 2023.
And the market is booming. EV sales grew ninefold there last year, making the Turkish market bigger than Italy and Spain.
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Despite Togg’s hopes that the T10X will be available in Germany by the end of the year and in France next year, Taylan believes the company still has a long way to go.
The car is “considered expensive and only about 25,000 models a year are sold,” he said.
To have a chance of being profitable, a car factory would have to build at least “200,000 vehicles a year,” Taylan argued.
Source: AFP