Building Türkiye’s Robotaxi Network

Cankut Durgun, Co-Founder, President & COO, Martí, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss building Türkiye’s robotaxi network.

Martí is positioning itself as the demand aggregator and fleet operator for robotaxis in Türkiye, leveraging a ride hailing footprint across 40 cities representing approximately 90% of national GDP.

Its micromobility operation, which manages tens of thousands of vehicles through a network of charging, maintenance and parking depots, gives Martí an operational playbook that transfers directly to robotaxi fleets. With a 19x spread between peak and trough hourly demand, Martí envisions a hybrid network where robotaxis serve base load demand and human drivers absorb the peaks.

Martí is executing a multi partner strategy, with announced partnerships with Tensor and CalmCar and advanced discussions with providers across the US, China and other markets. The thesis is that the performance gap between autonomous driving stacks is narrowing, pointing to a steady state market of dozens of providers rather than one or two.

Türkiye’s National Artificial Intelligence Action Plan, signed into force by President Erdoğan, establishes a regulatory framework, with over a dozen references to autonomous vehicles covering technical parameters, pilot conditions and the path to scale.

Today, the unit economics present a structural challenge as ride hailing revenue per kilometer in Türkiye is 3x to 4x lower than in the US, while import taxes can double vehicle costs, requiring an additional 70% to 80% cost reduction beyond US viability before robotaxis become economical in the Turkish market.

Over the longer term, Türkiye’s customs union with the EU, its established automotive manufacturing base in Bursa and the national EV brand Togg, with its autonomy arm, could offer a path to domestically produced autonomous vehicles.

Episode Chapters

• 00:00 Martí’s Robotaxi Strategy in Türkiye
• 07:34 Planning Robotaxi Depots in Istanbul
• 09:21 Airport Proximity and Energy Access
• 14:17 CalmCar Testing and Pilot Timelines
• 17:44 Financing Robotaxi Fleets
• 19:25 Robotaxi Economics in Türkiye vs the US
• 22:24 Manufacturing Autonomous Vehicles in Türkiye
• 28:37 Evaluating Autonomous Driving Partners
• 31:10 Why Martí Chose a Multi Partner Strategy
• 35:46 Martí as the Local Partner
• 36:49 Dedicated vs Mixed Robotaxi Tiers
• 42:52 Robotaxi Utilization and Ride Share
• 44:48 The Future of Martí
• 47:30 AUTNMY AI