Turkish start-up Togg on the trail of Tesla and Nio: Smartes Device

Turkish start-up Togg on the trail of Tesla and Nio
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Of course, Togg could have gone to the International Motor Show in Munich with its stage premiere or presented itself to the general public at a major event in its home city of Istanbul. But the first Turkish automaker wanted more and it was a big hit at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Even the ongoing pandemic did not prevent the tech Turks from their plan to show themselves and the self-developed “Advanced Smart Mobility Ecosystem”. Togg, what sounds like the latest high-tech accessories from Apple or Samsung, stands for a new age. For decades, cars, commercial vehicles, buses and trucks have been manufactured in Turkey – but only by foreign manufacturers. This annoyed not only the well-known auto-savvy population, but also the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo & # 287; who has been doing everything for years to crown the domestic auto industry with his own brand.

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Togg is backed by a powerful Turkish consortium made up of the renowned companies Anadolu Grubu Holding A. & # 350;., BMC Otomotiv Sanayi ve Ticaret A. & # 350;., Turkcell & # 304; leti & # 351; im Hizmetleri A. & # 350;., Zorlu Holding A. & # 350 ;. and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey. The partners each have a 19 percent stake in the company; the remaining five percent remain with Togg itself. Mehmet Gürcan Karaka & # 351; that has been deeply interwoven with the international auto industry for decades. Before moving to Togg, Karaka & # 351; responsible for the electric drives of the mass supplier Bosch.

While Togg unveiled an electric hatchback sedan at CES 2022 in Las Vegas, the new automaker’s first vehicle will be a crossover in early 2023, which is initially due to hit the domestic market. “We will launch our first series vehicle at the end of 2022. After the homologation tests have been completed, our first vehicle in the C-segment, the SUV, will be launched on the market in the first quarter of 2023,” says Mehmet Gürcan Karaka & # 351; “It will be the first purely electric SUV, which is produced by a non-traditional manufacturer on the European continent. After that, a sedan and a hatchback model in the C segment will go into production on the same platform. With the subsequent B-SUV and C-MPV models, our product range consists of five models, with the same DNA and the same platform. ” At the start there are two battery sizes for 300 and 500 kilometers and a choice of 200 or 400 hp. The appearance of the vehicles comes from Pininfarina with the help of the former Volkswagen designer Murat Günak.

Construction work has been underway on the new factory near Gemlik in the north-west of the country since mid-2020, where the first Togg models will roll off the production line from the end of this year. In a first expansion step, the production has an annual capacity of 175,000 vehicles. Togg wants to produce a total of one million vehicles in five different segments by 2030; But the start is already getting harder than ever, because Turkey has so far had nothing to do with electric cars and the German premium manufacturers in particular have a reputation on the Bosphorus like Donnerhall. Togg wants to soften that with solid technology and a great deal of local patriotism. What could still work in Turkey itself should be a real Herculean task in Europe, especially against the established competition and the import brands from Korea, China and Japan. Like almost all new car brands, Togg wants to do without classic car dealers. Distribution takes place over the Internet, while brand stores are supposed to ensure image and awareness. In the long term, Togg wants to earn its money in a complete ecosystem and has already brought a large number of cooperation partners on board. With a view to the 2030s, the car will become a means to an end – if the project works.

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