Turkish car manufacturers

The surprising thing was not that Norwegian electric car maker Think declared bankruptcy last month - it's done that four times before - but that the white knight swooping in to save the company is, of all things, Turkish.

You are forgiven if you don't know that Turkey has actually a big car business. In the end, no other Moslem nation does, and there isn't any internationally known Turkish brand. But in reality, chicken's car manufacturing had been bigger than Italy's in 2009, and it's really growing quickly. One of the contenders (unsuccessful, alas) for creating nyc's new taxis was an oddly oblong Turkish van built by Karsan.

The Top Ten producer no person knows
You had need to conclude that only traditional biases and only the U.S./Asia/Europe axis keep Turkey off numerous accountings of globe auto manufacturing, since it's in the worldwide top ten. Chicken is the earth's best-kept secret: A place to construct automobiles with a talented workforce, close-by export areas and reduced expense.

Ford (F) builds its Transit van at its partnership Otosan plant in Kocaeli, chicken, which makes $3 billion in export earnings annually. A year ago, Ford revealed a $630 million development of operations at Otosan, and stated it's going to begin importing Transits towards U.S. in 2014 (changing domestically made but gas-guzzling E-Series vans). The smaller Transit Connect van, additionally built-in chicken, has been sold inside U.S. since 2009.

Turkey has been making cars because the 1950s, initially under license from Ford, Renault and Fiat (which, with the help of Toyota, are nevertheless the nation's biggest producers). Based on a Deloitte research, cars and trucks are actually chicken's leading export, totaling $17.3 billion in 2010. Chicken produced more than a million automobiles a year ago and exported 754, 000 of these.

Fast growth
Turkey's auto industry had been up 26 per cent last year, partly because the domestic market is developing and contains room for lots more development - you will find just 104 vehicles per 1, 000 individuals in Turkey, in comparison to 500 in France and Germany.

Turkey has requested membership in the European Union - it straddles Europe and Asia - but has not been accepted. Getting the main EU (not very likely before 2013) would help the automobile industry by making it much easier to export vehicles around European countries. Adoption regarding the Euro would help, too, but things tend to be going along well anyway - many Turkish vehicles head to Europe now.

What Turkey doesn't always have is any kind of automotive brand, although the Turkish federal government really wants one and it is subsidizing growth of a home-grown car that would be offered globally. The greatest Turkish automobile business today, TofaÅŸ, creates Fiat-family automobiles (312, 000 of these this season). The feasible acquisition of Think doesn't develop a game-changer vehicle, because although manufacturing would move to chicken, the manufacturing group would stay Norway-based.

BD Otomotiv, the organization in negotiations purchasing Think from bankruptcy, is within the company (small-scale to date) of transforming light commercial vehicles to electric, for both the Turkish and European areas. According to Otomotiv's chairman, Osman Boyner:

Our objectives tend to be easy - to bring Think off personal bankruptcy making it the inexpensive urban EV for European countries it had been always built to be. We possess the manufacturing abilities and sales community to work on this, and coupled with a core number of retained Think skill in Norway we make an effort to start brand new systems while the next generation of cars if successful within our bid. Listed from the marketplace
Boyner said their other core strategy should bring down the cost of the vehicle, which is without a doubt crucial to rendering it work. Think (once had by Ford) declared personal bankruptcy with 500 cars nonetheless in inventory - a huge quantity for these types of a small company. Plus its largest marketplace, Norway, Think managed to offer only 85 cars in the first half of 2011. U.S. sales were even under that. There's an obvious reason behind the car's failure to launch: The two-seat plastic-bodied electric battery vehicle is sweet, but it's also jaw-droppingly expensive, priced over the