Automotive Exports November 2021

Ford Otosan to
invest $2.4B,
largest ever for
Turkish auto
industry
Ford Otosan, a joint venture of Koç Holding,
Turkey’s largest conglomerate, and U.S.
automotive giant Ford, announced it will be
making a 2 billion euro (nearly $2.4 billion)
investment to manufacture new-generation
commercial vehicles and batteries at its
factory in Turkey.
The investment will make the carmaker’s
factory in the industrial Kocaeli province
Turkey’s first and only electric vehicle
integrated production facility that will also
manufacture batteries, Chairman of the
Board Ali Koç told a meeting in the capital
Ankara.
It also marks the largest investment ever
made in the Turkish automotive industry,
Koç said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hailed
the investment, saying it would provide
Turkish engineers with serious capabilities
in electric vehicles and batteries.
“Turkey will be the largest production
center of electrical commercial vehicles
in the future of the automotive industry,”
Erdoğan told the meeting at the
Presidential Complex.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (C), Ford
Otosan Chairman of the Board Ali Koç (R)
and Ford’s Europe Chief Stuart Rowley
during a meeting in the capital Ankara,
Turkey, March 16, 2021.
Once completed, the investment will
lift the Ford Otosan’s annual production
capacity from 440,000 to 650,000, the
president added.
Erdoğan also announced that the
carmaker will be manufacturing a one-ton
commercial vehicle for Volkswagen, as
part of an alliance between Ford and the
German carmaker.
Ford Otosan will open its battery assembly
factory for electric vehicles (EVs) in 2022.
It is expected to produce 210,000 newgeneration
commercial vehicles and
130,000 batteries per year.
The Kocaeli facility, located in the Gölcük
district, is the largest commercial vehicle
production hub for Ford in Europe.
The investment in the EV production facility
will be the second of its kind in Turkey after
Automobile Joint Venture Group (TOGG),
the first fully domestic EV, Industry and
Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said in
his address.
The car is being developed by Turkey’s
TOGG, a consortium of five major
companies.
The consortium will produce five different
models – an SUV, sedan, C-hatchback,
B-SUV and B-MPV – by 2030. Mass
production of the SUV will begin in 2022,
with the sedan to follow.
Hailing the success of the domestic
automotive industry, Varank dubbed Ford
Otosan as being among the pioneering
firms as it holds a 25% share in the sector’s
overall production and exports.
Staying on top as Turkey’s leading export
sector, the automotive industry’s exports
exceeded $25 billion (TL 187 billion)
despite the pandemic, Erdoğan said.
“Turkey has exported more than 900,000
vehicles to 180 countries on five continents
last year,” the president noted.
The government in December announced
that the joint venture’s investment
November 2021 68