Search 

Automotive OEM (Heavy duty trucks, light/medium commertial vehicles, passenger vehicles, diesel engines for trucks and marine industry)

Ford OTOSAN is a leading automotive OEM in Turkey, designing and manufacturing vehicles (commercial, passenger) and covering a with wide service network.

Founded in 1959 as “OTOSAN A.Ş.”, Ford OTOSAN was the first automotive company in Turkey. In 1966, it manufactured the first domestic passenger car Anadol, which was designed by Turkish engineers, and in 1986 the first diesel engine. In 2009, it was the first Turkish company to export automotives to the USA and automotive export leader 5 times in Turkey.

Ford OTOSAN has the largest R&D center of the Turkish automotive industry, and the 3rd largest R&D center of Ford Motor Company, with approximately 1,300 engineers developing advanced technologies and products to dominate in global competition. It is the global design and engineering center for Ford’s heavy commercial vehicles and diesel engines. The Sancaktepe R&D Center, established in 2014, replacing the Gebze R&D Center, pioneers the engineering of Ford’s global diesel engine production as well as heavy duty trucks. Ford OTOSAN’s R&D investments continue in parallel with new vehicle and engine projects. 

Turkey’s commercial powerhouse, Ford OTOSAN accounted for 57% of Turkey’s commercial vehicle production and 61% of commercial vehicle exports in 2013. With a capacity of 330,000 commercial vehicles and 66,000 engines at Kocaeli and İnönü Plants, Ford OTOSAN reached a capacity of 415,000 units at the end of 2014.

In 2013, Ford OTOSAN started to manufacture the new Ford Cargo truck and Ford Transit Custom, which was “2013 International Van of the Year”. This year, investment towards the production of the new  9-liter and 13-liter Ecotorq engines is made, developed by Ford “EH   engineers, the intellectual property rights of which are wholly owned by Ford OTOSAN. Ford OTOSAN, continuing its R&D activities since 1961, has become an engineering center which provides employment to approximately 1300 engineers, develops and manufactures domestic engines, and provides licenses in accordance with international agreements. In 2013-14, exporting engine and heavy duty truck technology to China is achieved by means of an agreement signed with JMC, to produce under licence Ecotorq engines and Cargo heavy duty trucks in the world’s largest truck market, China.

Ford OTOSAN is experienced in complete design, validation, manufacturing and homologation phases of engine/vehicle families, as well as testing, service and after sales operations.

Automotive OEM

The Fraunhofer LBF (www.lbf.fraunhofer.de) looks back on 75 years of experience in the field of structural durability and nowadays expanded with the expertise in adaptronics, plastics and system reliability. The Fraunhofer LBF develops, evaluates and realizes customized solutions for safety relevant products with a team of more than 450 employees together with the associated Chair of System Reliability and Machine Acoustics SzM and Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry of the TU Darmstadt. In doing so, the full added value chain is considered, from the idea to the product, from the material to the system and over the full life-cycle. For the customized solutions, the LBF provides versatile test facilities on more than 17.000 m2 which are complemented by the Virtual Test Lab for numerical simulations and testing. Since 1 July 2012, the German Institute for Polymers (DKI) became a division of Fraunhofer LBF. Thus, the competences of the Fraunhofer LBF have been extended by synthesis, processing, analysis and testing of functional and engineering plastics. Furthermore, the new battery test center for evaluatiing the life-time and reliability of complete battery systems has opened April 2015. The Fraunhofer LBF is currently structured into the four divisions Structural Durability, Smart Structures, Plastics and System Reliability.