HLN DriveOften there is a car brand that Tesla wants to put on the fire. The latest pretender is the Turkish TOGG. Although this brand seems to have good cards, because there is a large machine behind it. HLN Drive considers and weighs the chances of the new constructor.
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TOGG is a collaboration between 5 major Turkish companies: the industrial group Anadolu Grubu, the commercial vehicle manufacturer BMC, the telecom company Turkcell and the industrial conglomerates Zorlu Holding and Kök Group. In addition, Turkey is a country with knowledge of car production: various brands, such as Volkswagen, Ford and Renault, build their cars in the country of President Erdogan.
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And now let that Erdogan be the last piece in TOGG’s puzzle. From 2022, the Turkish government (with the necessary nationalist pride) will invest more than 3 billion euros in the production of an electric SUV. About 175,000 cars should roll off the line every year. By 2030 there should be even 1 million.
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“From the moment we see our cars driving all over the world, we have achieved our goal,” was the unmistakable message from the Turkish president at the presentation of the project.
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Italian design
For the design of their car, the Turks turned to the Italian design agency Pininfarina, which designed many well-known cars such as the Ferrari F40 and Maserati Quattroporte. The result is a car that looks fairly European and contains all kinds of features that we know from modern electric cars: camera mirrors as in the Audi e-tron of Honda e, folding door handles as in the Jaguar I-Pace and an interior with an impressive touchscreen as an eye-catcher.
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Much data about the TOGG is not yet known, but it is said that a range of 500 km for the top versions and 300 km for the basic version. You could choose between front and four-wheel drive. The Turkish SUVs have a price tag of about 30,000 euros, a lot cheaper than the Teslas that he wants to compete.
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Survivability
But how viable is this project? A price of 30,000 euros seems like a lot, but actually TOGG plays an interesting part with this. In Belgium, the Turkish electric SUV has only a few competitors within the same price range: the Chinese MG ZS EV, from Opel Mokka-e and the Peugeot e-2008. Moreover, their range does not reach the 500 km promised by the Turks.
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If they know how to live up to their claim and also to present a credible story in terms of reliability and quality, it could just be that the Turks, following the Chinese, managed to conquer their place in our European car landscape.
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Are you ready for an electric car? Take the test on HLN Drive here.
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