Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed plans for the India entry of the electric car maker. He said that the process to bring Tesla cars to India will begin in January 2021. Tesla sales teams are working on building custom sales and production orders for the India market. The team is also ensuring orders are complete and validated once the configuration is finished. The move will also open India to select as one of the countries where Tesla cars can be purchased.
However, whether Musk will announce a plant in India to push PM Narendra Modi’s domestic manufacturing dream or source them from other facilities is not yet clear. Gigafactory in Shanghai, China is the nearest to India, but looking at current conflict between two the super powers this option seems highly unlikely.
On several occasions, Musk had revealed that he would like to bring Tesla to India. However, he posted in 2018 on Twitter, he cited “some challenging government regulations” as a hurdle. He also criticised the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms for the delay in the electric car maker’s entry into the Indian market.
This comes at a time when India is ramping up charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. The Indian government currently aims to significantly increasing the proportion of electric vehicles plying on the roads. In 2015, Modi visited Tesla headquarters at Palo Alto, California. He also met Musk who gave Modi a tour of the company’s electric car plant. Tesla has not launched any of its electric cars in India or any other country in South Asia yet. The only Asian market where the company currently has presence is China.
