Brand-Level Electric Vehicle Sentiment in Türkiye: Country-of-Origin Positioning and Expressed National-Identity Cues in YouTube Comments

This study examines brand-level EV sentiment in relation to country-of-origin positioning and expressed national-identity cues in YouTube comments. A BERT-based Turkish language model (BERTurk) was used to classify sentiment in 5,274 user-generated YouTube comments (2021–2025), transformed into a continuous confidence-weighted polarity score (−1 to +1). Expressed ethnocentric cues were identified using a validated domain-specific dictionary (Cohen’s κ = 0.88, inter-coder agreement). ANOVA, Welch’s t-tests, and OLS regression with interaction terms tested brand-level differences and moderation. Results indicate significant sentiment differences across brands: TOGG and Tesla receive moderately positive evaluations, whereas BYD is evaluated negatively. Hypothesis H2 (domestic advantage) received only partial support: TOGG differed significantly from BYD but not from Tesla, so brand-level differentiation is best described as driven primarily by BYD. The presence of expressed ethnocentric or national-identity cues is associated with a negative Origin × Cue interaction whose statistical magnitude is sensitive to the inference assumption (cluster-robust SE vs. more conservative video-level permutation test). Topic modeling further reveals identity-based themes for TOGG and technological-competence themes for foreign brands. Observed discourse patterns are consistent with country-of-origin positioning and expressed national-identity interpretations. Findings are framed as patterns in expressed brand-level sentiment rather than evidence of EV adoption or purchase behavior.