Turkey has hiked import tariffs on electric vehicles produced in China as it gears up to commence manufacturing of its first domestically produced EV through the Togg brand.
The government of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed that it will impose an additional 40% customs duty on electric vehicles made in China, Bloomberg reports. This comes at a particularly inopportune time for the world’s second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD, which recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkish distributor ALJ Turkiye to enter the local market with its passenger and light commercial vehicles.
The new customs duty comes on the back of electric vehicle sales almost tripling in 2022 to 7,733 units. This came in part due to lower consumer tax rates than combustion-engine cars and means EVs now account for a touch over 1 per cent of Turkey’s passenger car market.
Read: Turkey’s Togg Electric SUV Spied Testing In Production Form
The Turkish government no doubt hopes that making Chinese-made EVs more expensive will encourage more locals to purchase Togg’s forthcoming EVs.
The company’s first model will take the form of an SUV and launch before the end of this year. It was unveiled as a concept back in 2019 and the production model will look quite similar, as our latest spy photographers recently revealed.
Underpinning the vehicle will be an EV-dedicated platform and it will be offered in two different power outputs. The entry-level model will have a single electric motor driven the rear wheels with 200 hp and 310 miles (500 km) of range while a dual-motor AWD variant will also be sold with 400 hp and 248 miles (400 km) of range.
