EV Maker Championed By Turkey's Erdogan To Compete With Tesla In Europe Next Year

Turkish EV maker Turkey’s Automobile Initiative Group, or Togg, will reportedly start exporting to Europe, where Elon Musk-led Tesla Inc TSLA is the fastest-growing automaker.

What Happened: The EV maker championed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is currently making cars for the domestic market, and will start producing vehicles for Europe by 2024-end, reported Bloomberg.

The company would commence exporting with an eye on Scandinavian countries, the report added, citing Chief Executive Officer Gurcan Karakas.

The company is also expecting to increase production to over 50,000 cars from the 28,000 cars planned for the present year, the report said.

Why It Matters: Togg was established in 2018 as a joint venture involving five of Turkey’s manufacturers-each with a 19% stake. The electrical car project is worth $3.6 billion.

The company is well-supported by the government with land and incentives. The government has also assured the purchase of 30,000 vehicles by 2025.

Togg started manufacturing at its Gemlik facility in 2022 and commenced deliveries in April by delivering its first vehicle to Erdogan and his wife Emine.

The company is now eyeing the production of 1 million EVs by 2030 across five connected EV models.

In February, Tesla accounted for 2.4% of the new passenger car registrations in the European Union with 19,249 vehicles being registered. This marks a 49.7% increase from the number of vehicles registered in February 2022.

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