Upgrading in the Automotive Periphery: Turkey's Battery Electric Vehicle Maker Togg

Restructuring of the automotive industry in the post-2000 period has led to the emergence of three strata of automotive manufacturing jurisdictions. Core automotive countries host the headquarters of global automakers. They retain most research and development (R&D) and high levels of production. By contrast, integrated peripheries offer low-cost labour. While increasing levels of vehicle production have gravitated there, they have been unable to attract mandates for knowledge-intensive portions of the automotive value chain. Finally, semi-peripheries have neither a home-grown automaker nor low-cost labour. Consequently, they have been unable to gain mandates for R&D and struggle to maintain production. Thus, policy makers in non-core countries consider a range of tools to either retain their position or 'graduate' from one category to another. Recently, the demand for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) has given rise to new vehicle manufacturers. Turkey is attempting to develop a BEV automaker and jump from an automotive integrated periphery country to one having a key attribute of an automotive core: a home-grown automaker. This article reveals and discusses Turkey's generous incentives and assesses the challenges the Turkish BEV entrant will confront, as well as its potential to generate wider economic benefits. The authors also consider the application the Turkey case study has for our understanding of power and upgrading in automotive global value chains.