TOFAŞ was established in 1968 and started production in 1971 by the late Vehbi Koç, founder of the Koç Group, and jointly owned by Koç Holding and FIAT Chrysler Automobiles. It is today one of FCA three globally strategic production hubs on over one million square meters plant. It has currently 450.000-vehicle production capacity with its more than 10.000 employees. Several Fiat models are produced in TOFAS and about 60% of them are for the export market. TOFAS holds gold level for World Class Manufacturing grading and is one of the six of Fiat plants.
TOFAS R&D unit was set up in 1994 and has now established its rightful position as the largest dedicated research and development centre within the Turkish Automotive industry, with a designated staff of more than 600. Research and development activities are concentrated on commercial vehicle design and development as well as the competitive production technologies for automotive. TOFAS Production Technology Development Department, as a function of R&D Centre, leads averagely 1-2 major projects of car manufacturing lines development per year. TOFAS Production Technology currently employs 62 personnel and is experienced especially in 3D equipment design, automation, robotics, production analyses and safety.
TOFAŞ not only acted as a project partner in many European projects such as AUTORECON, SMErobotics and X-ACT, but also acted as a project coordinator of ROBO-PARTNER.