Turkey raises its own car brand: Bosch manager to bring Turkish electric Volksauto car on the road

08/06/2018

Turkey picks up its own car brand Bosch manager to bring Turkish electric Volksauto car on the road

Pool Presdential Press Service / AP / dpa

The national car plans of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan take on a more concrete form

An own domestic vehicle brand for Turkey until 2021 – that was the aim of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan surprisingly out in the past November, The pressure from the top for the prestige project seems to work. Because the Turkey has been able to report some progress in the past few days on the way to producing a “people’s car”.

For example, the five Turkish companies involved in the prestigious project have set up a joint company called Turkey’s Automobile Initiative Group Newspaper “Daily Sabah” reports, The consortium has also recruited a manager in Germany as head of the national car project: The BoschManager Mehmet Gürcan Karaka will lead the consortium for the construction of a Turkish folk car from 1 September.

The personality was announced by the Turkish President himself in a TV interview last week. Previously, Karaka was Bosch’s Divisional Board member for the Electrical Drives division at Bosch’s Bühlertal location, such as the Stuttgarter Zeitung reports, Born and raised in Turkey, he studied mechanical engineering both in his home country and in Germany; In the years 2004 to 2007 he led the Turkish subsidiary of Bosch according to the report.

He was happy about the opportunity to transfer his knowledge and experience in the global market to his home country, Karaka explained to his new job. “You can be sure that Turkey will produce a globally competitive brand,” Karaka said in a first statement.

First model should be equal to a pure electric car

Pretty big sounds so for a project with an ambitious schedule. According to earlier reports, the first prototype of the new national car ready 2019 will be presented, from the end of 2021, the car will be on sale.

Last November, the Turkish president said he supported efforts to have the vehicles hybrid or electric. That has apparently changed – the Turkish Volksauto is to start as a pure electric car. Already the first model is to be driven purely electrically, explained the boss of one of the companies participating in the national car consortium in March. In total, three different models are to be built on the planned platform. The batteries of the vehicle should be able to be recharged in five to six hours, announced the Turkish Prime Minister a few months ago. And the Turkish authorities want to support the development of the necessary charging infrastructure.

Five well-known Turkish companies, each holding 19 percent of “Turkey’s Automotive Initiative Group”, are participating in the national car project. Two of them have many years of experience in the construction of vehicles: The Anadolu Group has been producing buses and coaches together with Isuzu Motors delivery vans, light trucks and pickups for decades. The Turkish-Qatari company BMC is one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Turkey. The consortium also includes the largest Turkish mobile operator Turkcell and Zorlu Holding, whose subsidiary Vestel is one of the leading electronics companies on the Bosporus. The fifth partner is the Turkish Kök Group.

The activities are coordinated by the Union of Chambers and Stock Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) – which again illustrates the great interest of the Turkish state in the car project. The plan of own Turkish car is prepared from long hand. Already in Erdogan’s long-term plan “Vision 2023”, there were many indications that Erdogan wants to strengthen the national auto industry.

A first paying customer has already “reserved”

This is quite significant for the country – and for Europe – last year, automakers in Turkey produced 1.7 million vehicles off the production line, according to figures from the Turkish auto manufacturers’ association OSD. Among them were 1.1 million passenger cars. Renault-Nissan manufactures vehicles near Bursa with Turkish joint venture partners. Hyundai produces the small car models i10 and i20 130 kilometers east of Istanbul. Toyota is building compact cars and SUVs a few kilometers further.

Whether the Erdogan so protected Turkish national car brand is a sales success, but is still in the stars. Erdogan’s prestige project is not the first attempt on the national car. In earlier decades, there were already two purely Turkish car brands, which disappeared from the market in the 1990s: The brand “Anadol”, which brought together in cooperation with Ford a total of seven designed and produced in Turkey models on the market. Intended for the Turkish market was also the “Tofas Murat”, a slightly modified replica of a Fiat model, which was discontinued in 2003.

A prominent, paying customer has the ever-emerging Turkish national auto brand ever: the president himself. “I want to own the first of these cars, and of course I’ll pay for it,” Erdogan explained last November. “We will produce the Turkish car with the best design and technology, both for our country and for the world,” he added. Failure is not an option.

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