Turkey’s aim not to make indigenous car but create brand: Minister

Aysel Alp - ANKARA

The Turkish government’s efforts regarding locally made car projects are being misunderstood, Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Minister Faruk Özlü has said, noting that Turkey’s aim was to create a car brand rather than produce an indigenous car.“Our project aims at creating an electrical car brand. It is actually not difficult to produce an indigenous car, as many carmakers have production in Turkey and their designs and technologies are created here. We want to achieve a harder mission: We want to create a car brand, which will become popular not only in Turkey, but across the globe,” he said at parliament’s planning and budgetary commission on Nov. 9.He added that the required works had been launched to create a business model and to prepare administrative and technical specifications.Former Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık said last year that Turkey’s extended range electric car project would be better than Tesla’s model, as it would have an integrated charging station.Özlü also said Turkey’s factories needed to be transformed so as to become ready for the 4.0 Industry Revolution.“We plan to enable Turkey’s factories to be equipped with smart production systems and the production models to be transformed in accordance with the latest technologies. Furthermore, we want to develop these technologies with our indigenous means,” he added.