Ministry to grant $1.3 mln to fast-charging stations

Taylan Özgür Dil - ISTANBUL

Industry and Technology Ministry will allocate a total volume of 20 million Turkish Liras ($1.3 million) to grant support for 75 percent of the charging stations investments, which are expected to soar before new electric car models hit the Turkish roads next year.

The new regulation, which has been prepared by the ministry, was published in the Official Gazette last week.

Currently, some 3,500 charging stations are serving electric vehicles (EV) across Turkey. Some 1,000 of them are allocated for special use, while others are open to the public.

Only a third of them are fast-charging stations, known as direct current (DC), whereas the others are labeled as alternating current (AC) chargers.

The ministry will prioritize DC charging stations for support. A DC charging station could be capable of charging an electric car for between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

The number of EV chargers across the country is expected to double as TOGG (Turkey’s Automobile Initiative Group) and Tesla are planning a fast entry into the market starting from the end of this year.

Although EVs could be charged at homes, public car parks, and office buildings, DC charging stations are needed along intercity highways and expressways, said Ayşe Ece Şengönül, the general coordinator of private company Sharz.net.

“We are very excitedly awaiting the details of the incentive programs,” she said.

The minimum required investment for a DC charging station ranges between 20,000 euros ($21,930) and 150,000 euros ($164,500), Şengönül told the Daily Hürriyet.

Thus, the investment amount of around 16 fast-charging stations will be granted by the government.

The mass production of Turkey’s locally developed electric car, TOGG, will start by the end of this year, a senior official has said.

The company behind TOGG was established in 2018 under the leadership of the Union of Chambers and Commodity

Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) by companies of Anadolu Group, BMC, Root Group, Turkcell, and the Zorlu Group.

Electric cars produced by TOGG are expected to hit the roads next year, two years before being exported to European markets.

TOGG was picked as one of the best 20 brands showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January.

U.S. electric carmaker Tesla plans to introduce all of its four models - Model X, Model Y, Model 3, and Model S - to the Turkish market this year.

The company appointed Kemal Geçer as the CEO of Tesla Motorları, its local subsidiary, and lifted its capital from 710,000 liras to 50 million liras (nearly $3.4 million). Geçer previously served as Lufthansa’s Turkey-Iraq CEO.

Tesla’s website shows the likely supercharger locations in 10 provinces: Istanbul, Ankara, the northwestern provinces of Sakarya, Bursa, Balıkesir, and Edirne, the Central Anatolian province of Konya, the Mediterranean province of Antalya, and the Aegean provinces of İzmir and Aydın. Data from the Automotive Distributors’ Association (ODD) showed that a total of 2,846 electric vehicles were sold in Turkey in 2021, marking a robust 237 percent increase from the previous year.