Turkey unveils first fully domestically-produced car in $3.7B bet on electric
I gotta say this makes a surprising amount of sense.- Turkey is the perfect size for a relatively beefy electric car battery to make through in one charge, effectively removing the range anxiety.- This car will likely be immediately competitive in at least the Turkish market because Turkish taxes are crazy on transport. Gasoline is taxed at ~70%, cars are taxed at 68% (50% + 18% VAT). A domestic car will probably avoid the 50% on purchase and a domestic electric car will entirely avoid taxes on gas. Taxes make this a good deal at almost any price the average Turkish consumer can buy.- With the current very low, out of whack exchange rate (1USD:6TRY) this will also become competitive in at least Southern European markets fairly fast as well.- Since this is government sponsored they can also do a fairly fast rollout of electric charging stations by offering generous incentives. If that doesn’t work, they have the eminent domain hammer, and they will definitely just build it themselves as part of the electric service.- This also avoids the heavy industry required to build ICE cars, which has environmental costs. That cause is becoming popular with the electorate as well, exemplified in the stiff backlash against the country’s first nuclear reactor.- Lastly, Turkey has been building cars for the past 35 years and it’s gotten pretty good at it - many of the entry to mid level marques of European conglomerates are built in Turkish factories. This is an entry into luxury segment, it is not an entry into car manufacturing. That knowledge of being able to build safe and solid European cars already exists in there. If you’ve visited Europe, you likely already ridden a Turkish-made car (taxis) and if you live in Europe, chances are you might own one without knowing.- As a bonus point, I would say the choice of an Italian designer over a Turkish one bodes well for the effort because somebody actually made a level headed, reasoned call on this and not a nationalistic one.