When Berke Astarcıoğlu bought a BMW i3 in 2016, he was one of just 44 people in a country of 80 million to buy a battery electric vehicle (BEV) that year. By the time he bought a Tesla in 2023, BEVs were no longer a complete oddity in Turkey, making up 7% of new car sales.
Fast-forward two years and electric cars are selling so fast that Turkey has caught up with the EU in its rate of adoption. Its market is now the fourth largest in Europe, behind Germany, the UK and France.
“A premium product is a thing that makes you happy but that not everyone can have,” said Astarcıoğlu, a mechatronic engineer from Istanbul and the developer of an app to find charging stations. “My Tesla has become an ordinary car over here.”
BEVs made up 16.7% of new car sales in Turkey in 2025, just behind the EU’s 17.4%, registration data published on Tuesday shows. While uptake is lower than in the Netherlands or the Nordics, where BEVs make up 35% to 96% of new cars sold, sales in Turkey have raced ahead of almost every country in southern and eastern Europe.
Its electric vehicle surge is part of a global trend in which emerging markets from Uruguay to Vietnam are spurning fossil fuel-burning cars at surprising speed. The latest data comes as Turkey prepares to host the UN climate summit, and one month after the EU watered down its 2035 ban on new combustion engine cars.
Analysts attribute the boom to a disparity in Turkey’s special consumption tax, which has left electric cars only slightly more expensive than comparable petrol cars. Sales remained high even after the government raised taxes on electric vehicles in August.
“Practically speaking, Turkish people don’t buy electric vehicles because it’s eco-friendly,” said Ufuk Alparslan, an analyst at the climate thinktank Ember, saying that running costs were lower for electric cars. “The motivation is purely economical.”
Electrifying car fleets is seen as a crucial step to decarbonising the transport sector and reducing pollution, but efforts in many regions have run into roadblocks. In the EU, where planet-heating emissions from cars have risen by 17% since 1990, attempts to phase out combustion engines have been met with fierce resistance from the automobile industry.
The Turkish government does not have a dedicated electric vehicle strategy but has championed a domestic carmaker, Togg, which in 2024 overtook Tesla as the country’s leading EV seller. In an interview with Bloomberg HT last week, Togg’s board chair, Fuat Tosyalı, announced plans to increase production from 40,000 cars in 2025 to 60,000 in 2026.
Togg’s entry into the market, which was buoyed up by tax support and zero-interest credit from state-owned banks, has helped normalise electric vehicle adoption, said Berkan Bayram, the founder of the Turkish Electric and Hybrid Vehicles Association. “It gained the heart of Turkish buyers.”
Foreign carmakers who must contend with import duties have benefited from the Togg-friendly tax system, with manufacturers including Tesla reducing motor power in Turkey to fall into the same favourable tax bracket. China’s BYD is also jostling for a greater share of the market and plans to build a $1bn factory in Turkey.
In addition to the environmental benefits of displacing fossil fuel vehicles, the transition to electric mobility could be a geopolitical boon for countries that do not produce oil themselves. Turkey’s car fleet is expected to quadruple in size by 2053, sending demand for oil imports soaring, according to a report by InstitutDE, a Turkish diplomatic thinktank in Brussels.
While imports will rise in all scenarios studied, a failure to run more cars on electricity would heighten Turkey’s exposure to external shocks, price volatility and geopolitical risks, the report found.
However, the recent increase in BEV sales may not herald a systemic shift away from fossil fuel cars. The tax incentives are “very fragile” and can change easily, said Baki Kaya, an economist and former diplomat who co-wrote the InstitutDE report.
“It’s not the result of a strategic decision,” he said. “And I’m personally not that optimistic [it will continue].”
Analysis from Ember found the overall tax burden on electric cars remained high, with the total tax applied to electric cars in the lowest bracket reaching 50%, and rising to 86% in a higher bracket. Without changes, inflation and exchange rates could soon shrink the number of affordable BEVs, Alparslan said.
“Although electric cars have started to become widespread in Turkey, there is still a large, untapped potential to reduce energy imports through renewable energy and electric vehicles,” he said. “Tax policies that keep electric vehicle prices at more affordable levels could accelerate this momentum.”
