Locally-made electric car to hit the roads in 2022

ANKARA

Turkey’s first domestically-produced car will be an electric vehicle with 500-kilometer range and will be on the market in the second half of 2022, Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank told reporters on May 26.

“We do not see it as only a car project. This is a technological project that will transform the country’s entire automotive industry and boost the local automotive industry’s competitiveness in the international arena,” Varank said.

“We will develop an electric vehicle which will easily compete with its rivals,” he added.

The project has made good progress and everything is going as planned, according to the minister.

Varank said that the prototype for the locally-produced car was likely to be unveiled at the end of 2019.

“Probably, the car will be offered for sale and hit the roads in the second half of 2022. People are waiting for this car. It looks like there will be demand for it,” he added.

Varank stressed that the car is not been developed by the public but private companies and that the CEO in charge of the project and the entire team have been working hard on it.

The joint venture to produce Turkey’s first domestically-produced car established a company and hired Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş, a former manager at Bosch, as its chief executive in June last year.

Five local firms — Anadolu Group, BMC, Kıraça Holding, Turkcell, and Zorlu Holding — launched the firm that they named as the “Joint Venture for Turkey’s Car Industry and Commerce Co.” (Türkiye’nin Otomobili Girişim Grubu Sanayi ve Ticaret AŞ).

Each of the five firms has 19 percent shares in the new company. The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) joined the venture by holding five percent of the shares.