The electric automotive giant Tesla will soon bring all its models to Turkey via a branch of Tesla Motors in the country.
Most recently, Tesla boss Elon Musk named Kemal Geçer, who had been heading Lufthansa Airlines’ Turkey office since 2015, as the head of Tesla Motors' branch in Turkey and increased the capital of the company in the country by TL 50 million ($3.72 million).
The company will now complete its restructuring and offer four models, Model X, Model Y, Model 3 and Model S, in the country this year.
Musk came to Turkey in 2017 and met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
After this visit, their communication continued via phone and video messages.
Erdoğan, after one of the meetings with Musk, previously said, “They discussed the issues of cooperation between the public and private sector institutions in Turkey and the company in different fields, especially in space technologies.”
“We will continue to closely follow the developments in the field of technology in our country and the world and support every step taken in this field to benefit our nation,” the president said.
After these negotiations, Turkey's eighth satellite, Türksat 5B, was launched on Dec. 19, 2021, with a Falcon 9 rocket from Musk-founded SpaceX's base in Florida, United States.
Recent developments point to the relations evolving into something more than just space cooperation.
With the Tesla company in Turkey set to be launched, the vehicles and their prices are expected to be shared with the public soon. In addition, a service network and teams such as service, maintenance and roadside assistance will be created to serve customers.
Tesla's website now includes city names for Tesla Supercharger stations with the phrase "coming soon" for Turkish provinces.
The cities currently include Istanbul, the capital Ankara, southern Antalya, the western cities of Aydın, Balıkesir and Izmir, the northwestern cities of Bursa, Edirne and Sakarya, and central Konya. Charging stations will be installed at points that everyone can easily access, such as main roads or shopping malls.
Tesla will establish its own sales offices and store chains, primarily in Istanbul and later in the regions and other provinces. The company will provide employment opportunities to thousands of people with the service network it will establish in areas such as management, service, stores, service and maintenance.
Geçer, Turkey CEO of Tesla, was born in 1984 in Germany. A graduate of the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, Geçer started his career at Vodafone in Germany. After serving as a strategy consultant at IQ Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers AG, he became managing director of HEINE Medizin GmbH in Düsseldorf in 2013. Geçer, who started working at Lufthansa Airlines in 2015, was named as the general manager at Lufthansa Turkey as of Oct. 1, 2016, after serving as the sales manager for one year.
