
Turkey unveils first fully domestically-produced car in $3.7B bet on electric - emrehan
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-autos/new-turkish-electric-car-project-investment-seen-at-3-7-billion-idUSKBN1YV09E
======
rolleiflex
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.

~~~
ptaipale
If Turkey intends to sell domestic cars at lower taxes than imported / ones
manufactured by foreign companies in Turkey, then it can expect repercussions
in its free trade deals with other countries.

Not that Erdogan couldn't have such arrogant ideas, but it's not going to fly
like that.

Also, I don't get that idea about Turkey being perfect size for making through
its area with an electric car. Turkey is not a small country, Istanbul-Ankara
is 450 km, Ankara-Gaziantep is 700 km, and that's not yet even close to
"through" the country. Not that this is necessarily so relevant.

~~~
yesplorer
They don't have to do anything special. Once it's made in their country,
import duties a will not be applied, just like it works everywhere else.

That is a significant discount on the price.

~~~
sudosysgen
So far, these are taxes, not tariffs. If they want to charge it to only
foreign cars, then they would be tariffs. If they are tariffs, then that will
fuck their trade deals, and their domestic car industry. Which they are not in
position to suffer.

------
neogodless
There's a lot more information and photos here:
[https://www.motor1.com/news/390036/turkey-togg-csuv-ev-
autom...](https://www.motor1.com/news/390036/turkey-togg-csuv-ev-automobile/)

> Customers can choose from two different lithium-ion battery setups. The
> smaller option promises 186 miles while the larger pack should crack 300
> miles per charge.

> TOGG says the rear-drive model can hit 62 miles per hour in 7.6 seconds. The
> dual-motor SUV will do the deed in 4.8 seconds.

------
redisman
Interesting to see so many new entrants to the car manufacturing market. I
guess internal combustion manufacturing was so dominated by the big boys in
US-DE-JP that no one really had the muscle/margins to get into the fight at
that point. From what I've gleamed, electric motors are a lot simpler (less
moving parts).

~~~
jaakl
I lately saw presentation of VW also claiming how EV is several times
“simpler” and “less parts”, and then the next slide was that their next gen
similar size car is “only” about 2 times more expensive than ICE. 2 times
simpler should convert to 2 times cheaper also, or what I miss here? Lithium
is so expensive nowadays?

~~~
baybal2
No, lithium price makes very little difference to lithium battery price. All
those "industry analysts" from McKinseys and such suggesting it have never set
their foot in a battery factory.

The biggest price components of lithium cells is cobalt oxide used in cathode
plates, followed by nickel in cell chemistries using them. Both are not cheap
at all, and their supply is famously unstable. Metallurgical cobalt goes at
$30-40 per kilo in China, and battery grade cobalt oxide at almost the same
price.

So for a 200kg battery pack, you will be paying 2000-3000$ only for the
cathode material.

Second after this is plainly volumes. Tooling costs are very high. Even model
3 and BAIC EU are rather low volume by industry standards. You have to add to
that that EVs don't share chassis/platform with any other high volume car, and
thus can't share the bodywork tooling costs.

~~~
brohee
We start to see platform sharing between thermal and electric. E.g. Peugeot
new e-208 have very high part commonality with regular 208.

------
mswehli
Honestly, think they stand a pretty good chance in making it successful,
especially considering how good their domestic home appliance capabilities has
become. Different things, but atleast the embedded systems/electrical
engineering talent is there.

~~~
burakcosk
I'm from Turkey, this is just a show for always upcoming elections. Best
engineers in Turkey already left the ship, and the remaining is looking for a
way out

~~~
m00dy
Hey, I'm a Turk left the ship 6 years ago. Turkey has infinite amount of
engineer supply. I'm also sure the remaining can handle this.

~~~
duxup
"Turkey has infinite amount of engineer supply"

That seems unlikely.

~~~
ReptileMan
7000000 country could probably produce more engineering talent than it can
utilize. And building everyday cars is somewhat easy compared to the
aerospace, weapons, nuclear reactors or big dams/bridges/tunnels - you don't
push neither material science nor laws of physics to the limit.

~~~
unlinked_dll
Regressive fascists don’t tend to reach their potential engineering quality.

Take that number. Subtract all women and Kurds, people who speak critically of
the government. Adjust for the academics held as political prisoners and brain
drained talent.

That’s your engineering base. You can’t square the engineering circle when
your government is actively engaged in repressing the population.

~~~
squilliam
German engineers during WWII seems to refute this claim. History shows that
talented engineers drafted machines of mass murder with smile, as long as it
would fund their departments and I'm sure there were other considerations in
their decision to comply as well.

~~~
petra
Many world leading scientists fled Germany after 1933:
[https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.2018092...](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20180926a/full/)

And 15% of the scientists that we're fired from universities were responsible
for 64% of academic citations.

Also, many ways Germany had the inferior war technology and progress:
encryption. nuclear. Soviet tanks we're better. Germany didn't have long range
bombers. British anti-aircraft systems were better.

And all that from a country that led the world in science and engineering
before WWII.

~~~
hutzlibu
"Also, many ways Germany had the inferior war technology and progress:
encryption. nuclear. "

But superior in conventional warfare at the beginning of WW2. Stukas, tanks
and infanterie well (radio) coordinated.

MG42, the basemodel is still in use as MG3 today

Also later: ME262 (first jet engine), STG44 (first assault rifle), V1 and V2
(rockets)

So given the size, german wartechnology was very advanced.

But it was because this was the sole focus of the ruling nazi party: war tech.

Basic university research is about anything and mostly civilian and the nazis
were no academics: they cared about war technology and "scientific" proof,
that the aryans are superior. So they did not feel the loss of the fleeing
jewish based intellectuals so hard.

"And all that from a country that led the world in science and engineering
before WWII."

And this statement is probably more likely true before WWI.

------
AcerbicZero
So, they (reportedly) commissioned Pininfarina to do the design work, as a
"joint design team" with the TOGG folks, but based on the fit/finish of the
interior (and the design choices) it kind of looks like Pininfarina did the
actual manufacturing of this concept car.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it might be a bit early to call this a
"fully homemade car".

~~~
jaysonelliot
I have to say I'm shocked to hear that Pininfarina could have designed
something so ungainly, dull, and almost ugly.

They're one of the greatest design / coachbuilding companies in automotive
history. This just looks like a generic block of soap from a nameless factory.

I wonder what happened.

~~~
carokann
Sedan looks pretty cool. Elaborate on how the cars look ungainly,dull and ugly
please.

------
mavdi
I’m old enough to remember the last “first fully homemade Turkish car”. It was
named Imza (Turkish for signature). I don’t remember the specifics but it was
total flop with some financial fraud in the mix. Hoping for a better result
this time.

------
adige01can
There were companies who are selling the same template with different color
plate to the customers and lying about they designed from scratch. It seems
Italians did the same.

[https://www.motor1.com/news/390097/togg-suv-sedan-concept-
pi...](https://www.motor1.com/news/390097/togg-suv-sedan-concept-pininfarina/)

~~~
dchest
Pininfarina is a famous Italian company that designs cars for manufacturers.

~~~
adige01can
I know that part, the weird part is they gave Turkish government a predesigned
car for another customer.

------
flywithdolp
I've been traveling in Turkey few months ago. Was extremely impressed by the
resources this vast country have and by the wealth its citizens (in Istanbul)
used to have.

Turkey have healthy infrastructure to develop these kind of industry. I
believe that they can afford paying top talents from all over the world to
come there and boost this industry

------
anonu
One of the things that technology enables is lower barriers to entry. In the
past, you had to be horizontally integrated to make a car. Even Tesla, to some
extent is massively horizontally integrated as they are first movers.

Technology enables global supply chains. Electric cars may have fewer moving
parts. The result is a "narrower" approach to integration where you can rely
on others for important or critical parts.

Assuming they can make this car reliable and cheap - the makers only need to
focus on marketing and selling to make it successful.

~~~
jbay808
Did you mean vertically integrated?

~~~
anonu
Yes - sorry - long week!

I meant vertically integrated, meaning a car company needs to control their
supply chain.

------
Too
Completely new platform from completely inexperienced vendor, mass produced,
with more shiny tech than the major car manufacturers have today combined (lvl
3 AD, augmented reality, V2X, eye tracking, holographic assistant?, etc). All
done in 2 years...good luck. No doubt they might get a car out eventually but
it wont be the car advertised here and the timeplan is still very optimistic.

------
aphextron
Where are they getting the batteries?

Electric cars are an extremely simple, mature technology that is decades old.
Building one isn't hard. The real trick is high volume production of high
capacity lithium ion batteries, and the associated pack technology. This is
why the Europeans are still massively behind Japan, Korea, and the US (Tesla)
with EVs. They can't get enough cells to manufacture cars in high enough
volume to be profitable, because they are simply buying them from LG Chem and
Panasonic.

If Turkey isn't investing billions into battery production, then the whole
endeavor is a pointless prestige project.

~~~
rth
Zorlu Enerji (It's a well known Turkish energy company as well as part of the
TOGG) already invested 4.5 billion USD to build up a battery factory together
with Chinese GSR Capital.

BTW, It is not new, it was some years ago IIRC.

------
smabie
3.7bn over 13 years? There’s no way that anything will become of this. Of
course, that’s not the point. I suspect that exactly one car will ever be
made, the car that the despot Erdegon will get to drive in for the cameras.

~~~
ailideex
And well off westerners will praise him for it ... see this thread - just an
announcement and everyone is practically falling over themselves to pile on
the praise.

------
buboard
So what will german / italian companies do if they see that their "china"
(manufacturing base) is making its own brand?

------
aerovistae
"Elon Musk did it, so...."

------
djsumdog
On a tangent: Why hasn't Tata (India) tried to enter the American markets?
They're a huge shop (they've got a ton of engineering branches just like GE or
LG), and I realize a lot of their car production is tied up domestically or to
Africa where their industrial their vehicles are big, but surely they've have
to had considered selling cars in Europe/the US? They have a US
engineering/consulting presence already and even do large scale government
contracts (although they require US citizens for those .. which is .. a weird
hybrid when you think about it), but we don't see any of their cars in the US.

~~~
clouddrover
Tata owns Jaguar Land Rover so they're already in the US and Europe.

------
st1ck
Devrim was the first one (and had more style to it), but there were only 4 of
them produced:

[http://devrimarabasi.com/galeri/big/siyahbeyaz/siyahbeyazdev...](http://devrimarabasi.com/galeri/big/siyahbeyaz/siyahbeyazdevrim62.jpg)

[http://devrimarabasi.com/galeri/big/siyahbeyaz/siyahbeyazdev...](http://devrimarabasi.com/galeri/big/siyahbeyaz/siyahbeyazdevrim54.jpg)

------
uyuioi
It’s over for combustion engine cars. Bring on electric competition.

------
coding123
I hope one day cars will be the next "tower computer" in that you can buy your
motors, shell, seats, OS (and self driving AI), all separately and just put
them together. It would be very cool to see companies that just specialize in
making different bodies, companies making different frames, but all working
with a standardized blueprint.

I think the first iteration of THAT would be a huge boon to the economy.

------
bfieidhbrjr
Who better to provide innovation and challenge Tesla than an autocratic
government and a committee of random companies?

~~~
sinanata
You may want to do your own research, not random companies. This gov support
model has proven successful with defense companies in TR, they're moving it to
the mobility industry for the first time.

------
sinanata
I believe Elon Musk deserves credit for inspiring people thousands of miles
away. -Over 100K guaranteed sales -Free land allocation for 1M m2 -100% tax
cut -Massive interest rate cut for financing -2 SUVs and 1 Sedan in 2022
-Concept designs were made by Pininfarina

------
oblib
By today's standards it's a pretty car. I'm way over the Lamborghini style
front end scoops but this has much softer lines compared to most right now and
it's nice.

------
orenak
he drove it today on live broadcast:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Cu4dPNLok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Cu4dPNLok)

~~~
savrajsingh
seems surprisingly polished, really curious as to how they pulled this off --
they're making it look easy

~~~
kasabali
Easy, the prototype has been brought from Italy. Nothing has been made yet in
Turkey.

------
anticensor
May it be unlike Erke Dönergeci, a fraudulent group that attempted to produce
a perpertual motion machine.

------
z3ncyberpunk
I think I'll pass on contributing to Erdogan's genocide funding

------
smabie
I don’t understand what about this car is “homemade.” The headline doesn’t
make any sense. And if it does, it’s in a paternalistic (maybe racist?) sort
of way.

------
OrgNet
> Erdogan first revealed plans in November 2017 here to launch a car made
> entirely in Turkey by 2021.

Electric cars are much simpler then conventional combustion engine cars... no
transmission needed.

I'm glad that Elon was not successful in putting a transmission in the Tesla
car.

