ODTÜ, firm make electric sports car

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Company executives pose with Etox sports car witn an electric engine.

Ertex, a Turkish automotive sector company, and Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) have jointly developed a sports car with an electric engine. Ertex is now considering the industrial production of an electric light commercial vehicle, according to company executives.

The electric sports car, a product of 20 months of work, was presented yesterday. The car is able to go 180 kilometers with a full battery and reach speeds up to 170 kilometers an hour, executives have said. Ertex, which manufactured local sports car “Etox” six years ago, decided to develop an electric model on a recommendation by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said chairman Ercan Malkoç. The company started to work on manufacturing an electric sports car in cooperation with the science and industry minister and ODTÜ. The project was worth $1,045,000 at the end.

Malkoç said they had made an agreement with two different companies to develop the electric motor and battery, adding that they had come to the final phase of local electric motor manufacturing and it would be finished soon. He announced that they had been working on an electric-engine car having a local motor in the light commercial vehicle class. 

This vehicle will be manufactured as an intracity car that can be driven 150 kilometers with a full battery and may reach a maximum of 100 kilometers an hour, said Malkoç. They plan to manufacture 1,000 cars annually for now, but they expect to increase the number in line with demand.