The Green Deal Will Change The Functioning Of Economy And Trade

We plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050, including the action plans set by the EU Green Deal commission

The automotive industry experienced its first major transformation in the early 1900s when it switched from manual production to mass production and became a part of our lives. Approximately 120 years later, the automotive industry is now undergoing its second transformation towards smart and clean vehicles. While this process is expected to accelerate in the 2030s, the plans for the inevitable transformation were brought much forward with the Green Deal announced by the European Union (EU) in 2019. The Green Deal includes measures such as stricter carbon emission reduction targets, stricter emission values, and the use of eco-friendly and recyclable materials.

As the new roadmap that outlines the EU’s future industrial policy and economic growth strategy, the Green Deal is of great importance for our country, our industry, and our company, realizing more than 50% of their foreign trade with the EU. The EU will put the Carbon Border Adjustment into effect to unite its global trading partners around these goals. Therefore, we have to follow this process closely and adapt ourselves to it in order to continue our trade with the EU in a healthy way. Being the export leader within the scope of the Green Deal, which has the potential to change the functioning of the global economy and international trade with its goals, the automotive industry is one of the industries expected to undergo the most change in Turkey. As Ford Otosan, we closely follow the process regarding the Green Deal within the scope of our sustainability strategies. We are taking the necessary steps for the green transformation within the scope of the largest automotive investment in the history of the Republic, which we announced in recent months.

Through this investment with which we will realize electric and connected next-generation commercial vehicle projects, our Kocaeli plants will become the first and only electric vehicle integrated production facility including the battery in Turkey, and we will reach a battery assembly capacity of 130 thousand units. In the first stage, by 2022, we will be realizing the mass production of Ford’s first all-electric commercial vehicle E-Transit for Europe. By 2023, we will be producing the first all-electric version of the Next-Generation Transit Custom family, with diesel and rechargeable hybrid electric PHEV (Plug-In Hybrid) versions. We have signed the statement “Transition to zero-emission freight road transportation” of ACEA for which we undertake global development and production activities as Ford Otosan and have demonstrated our commitment to the goal of reducing the heavy-duty commercial vehicles carbon footprint to zero as of 2040, in line with the Green Deal.

As Ford Otosan, we plan to reach the 2050 zero-emission target of the EU Green Deal through our long-term investments in our production facilities as well as the vehicles we manufacture. We have the most efficient production line in Ford EU in terms of energy consumption per vehicle in our production activities for three years. We plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050, including the action plans set by the EU Green Deal commission. We will reduce our carbon footprint per vehicle by 55% in line with the requirements of 2030, which is an important milestone. We will achieve this through our eco-friendly products and our flexible production, including batteries, and integrated approach.

General Manager of Ford Otosan Haydar Yenigün