Erdogan Becomes The first Owner Of Türkiye's Homegrown Electric Car

On Tuesday, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the country's first domestically produced electric vehicle. A Togg model T10X was delivered to the Presidential Palace in Ankara today, as Erdogan stated, "we're starting to see Togg on the roads." He added that he expected to see the cars all over the world, not just in Turkey.

After a brief ceremony in which Erdogan praised Turkey's technological advancement, he and his wife Emine drove the maroon compact SUV around the presidential complex.

Togg was established in 2018 as a five-company collaboration. Its name is an abbreviation for Türkiye'nin Otomobili Girişim Grubu, which stands for Turkey's Automobile Joint Venture Group Inc. The company intends to produce 17,000 to 18,000 electric vehicles at its headquarters in Gemlik, Turkey's northwestern region.

The T10X, one of the brand's five models, costs between $50,200 and $55,600 for a range of 314 kilometres. A longer-range model with an estimated range of 520km between charges costs around $64,000. According to the electric car magazine Electrive, it offers a small degree of autonomous driving, including a rush hour mode that allows drivers to remove their hands from the wheel when travelling at less than 15km/h.

An all-wheel drive version will be on the market by the end of October. Export to Europe should begin at the end of 2024. The car can be taken from 20 per cent charge to 80 per cent charge in less than 28 minutes, the automaker says.