Turkey's electric car share leaps from 1% to 22% in three years

More than one in five new cars sold in Turkey in 2025 was electric, up from one in 100 in 2022, data compiled by Our World in Data show.

Share of new cars sold in Turkey that are electric, 2015-2025, including plug-in hybrids. Source: International Energy Agency, Global EV Outlook 2026, chart by Our World in Data (CC BY).

Electric models took 22% of new car sales last year, double the 11% of 2024 and up from 7% in 2023, according to figures from the International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026. As recently as 2020 the share was 0.2%. The numbers include plug-in hybrids, but more than 80% of the cars are fully battery-electric.

The data show a more than twentyfold rise in three years. The website credits a 2023 tax change that cut the registration tax on electric cars relative to petrol and diesel models, timed to coincide with the launch of Togg, the government-backed domestic EV maker that quickly became market leader, along with cheaper imports, many of them Chinese. By 2025 Turkey had matched the EU average for the electric share of new car sales.

The boom rode on a record year for the car market in 2025, when passenger car and light commercial vehicle sales rose 10.5% to 1.37mn units, according to the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association (ODMD). Nearly 192,000 fully electric cars were sold, up 82% y/y, with Togg delivering 39,020 and Tesla 31,509.

Growth has slowed in 2026 as the overall market contracts. Electric car sales fell 12.3% y/y to 105,951 units in January-August, and dropped 32% in August alone, ODMD data show. Because passenger car sales fell faster, down 13.8% to 564,241, the fully electric share still edged up to 18.8% in the first eight months. Hybrids took a further 33.1%, meaning more than half of new cars sold had some form of electric drive.

The slowdown is concentrated at the top end. Sales of electric models rated above 160 kW fell 65.3% in January-August, while those below that threshold rose 7.3%. Togg has kept its lead, selling 30,734 cars in the period against 4,368 for Tesla.

Electric cars remain a small part of the fleet. There were 472,157 registered at the end of August, up 53% y/y but still only 2.6% of Turkey's 18mn passenger cars.