Some 100,000 EVs expected to be sold this year

ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s electric vehicle market is expected to continue to grow at a fast pace well into 2024, with EV sales forecast to reach 100,000 units in the new year.

The EV market’s expansion last year was astonishing. In January-November of 2023, a total of 60,101 EVs were sold in Türkiye, marking a staggering 867 percent increase from the same period of the previous year.

EVs accounted for 7.1 percent of all vehicle sales in the country, up from only 1.2 percent in the first 11 months of 2022.

In November 2023 alone, the EV market expanded 780 percent year-on-year with 11,218 vehicles sold.

With more than 60,000 sales in the January-November period, Türkiye ranked eighth largest market for EVs in Europe.

If expectations of 100,000 units of sales materialize, EVs will capture a 15 percent share of total vehicle sales in the country in 2024.

As the market grows, carmakers are expected to offer new models to Turkish consumers.

For instance, Chinese BYD, which entered the local market toward the end of last year, may start selling its Sedan model car, Seal, in the first quarter of 2024.

Volkswagen is likely to introduce its electric car ID.7 to the Turkish market this year.

Meanwhile, Türkiye’s first EV brand Togg has announced that it delivered a total of 19,583 cars last year. In December alone, the company delivered 6,008 vehicles.

Togg is expected to deliver a total of 60,000 EVs in 2024.

Overall car sales to decline

Despite the expectations that EV sales will maintain their momentum in 2024, overall car sales are forecast to slow this year compared with 2023.

The combined sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles are forecast to reach a record 1.2 million units in 2023.

Vehicle sales are expected to decline by some 30 percent this year from 2023 to around 750,000 to 800,000 in 2024.

Consumers will have difficulties with accessing financing in the first half of this year, which the representatives from the auto industry said will be one of the reasons that will impact sales. Car loans will cost more than they did in 2023, they also said.

However, vehicle prices are not expected to increase each month as they did in 2023, they argued.

The pent-up demand was unleashed in 2023, and this demand was met, said Hakan Tiftik from Borusan Otomotiv.

“Accessing financing, higher interest rates and foreign currency rates will be the main challenges consumers will face,” he added.

There won’t be a record number of sales in 2024, but the outlook for the car market is not “too bad,” said Tibet Soysal, deputy general manager at Doğan Trend Otomotiv.

“The competition will intensify as new carmakers will enter the market and companies will introduce new models to the market,” he added.