A computer with a motor and wheels

It was coincidentally exactly the same day that Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık was passing off imported vehicles to the press as “national automobiles” that I was testing the indigenous electrical automobile that, unfortunately, very few people know about. 

After that day, the auto writer of daily Hürriyet, Emre Özpeynirci wrote a prize-worthy series and explained in detail how the true story of the automobile that is called “national” was falling apart. Meanwhile, I also started doing my homework.

We are living in the 21st century; for this reason whenever we attempt to call something “national,” we have to think not 10 times, not 100 times but 1,000 times. 

Now everybody knows that fossil fuels will be extinct and that fossil fuel consumption is bringing the world to an unprecedented environmental disaster.  

If we opt for no change in our lifestyle and welfare, and at the same time we want to save the world from global climate change – in other words, if we are to stop producing and consuming fossil fuels – then we should make all our transportation vehicles not with internal combustion motors but with electric motors.    

We all know the future is in electric cars. But we cannot reach this future by retaining the already-known automobile concept and only by replacing the internal combustion engine with electrical motors. We have to change our concept, too.

At the center of the old (and today’s) autos is the motor. Recently, computers have been added to the automobile to help the motor and the driver, to create extra comfort, etc.

As a matter of fact, the new automobile is a computer. It is a computer with a motor and wheels. The motor is not at the center. If you really want to see something concrete, there is battery and hundreds and thousands of computers functioning together inside the vehicle. 

Let us not ask the question of “Why is our ministry trying to make a national vehicle by using public funds?” for the moment. But we can ask this: Why are we starting to design automobiles for the needs and realities of the 21st century with old concepts?    

Humanity has known the basic principles of the electric motors for roughly 200 years. Again in roughly 30 years, based on these basic principles, the productivity and capacity of electric motors have been advanced. Today, in an ordinary Turkish house, at least two electric motors are safely running. 

In an electrical vehicle, the most important part is not the motor, and it is not hard to make the motor.

Besides, the motor is the cheapest part of the automobile. The body of the car is not the most important part of an electronic car, either. You can have the best body designed by the best designers of the world. 

The two most important factors in an electric car are the battery and those hundreds and thousands of computers. 

If we are to use the “national” adjective absolutely, then what would be the thing that would make an electrical car “national?” Is it the wheels, the body, seats, motor or headlights or is it the computer and the software? 

Don’t forget, we are talking about a computer with wheels and a motor when we mention an automobile now. 

In Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, dozens of “national” automobiles have been on the roads for quite a while, developed with “national” capital, with thousands of national software and computers.

The first application of this was in the Toyota Corolla. But the body brand should not mislead you. You can easily design your own body or have it designed tomorrow to make your own “national” car. The difficult part is the software and the computers.