The Tesla electric vehicle appears to take more time to hit Indian roads than earlier anticipated.
This is because the EV maker’s CEO and tech billionaire Elon Musk no longer shows much interest in introducing the vehicle line to the Indian markets and seems more interested in the acquisition process of the microblogging platform Twitter.
Even though the Indian government is persuading Musk to manufacture Tesla vehicles in India and sell them here in the domestic market, the billionaire marks problems related to high import duties on Tesla vehicles.
Gadkari on Tesla’s EV Production in India
At a private event in Delhi held last month, he Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari addressed a question on remarks of the US auto giant Tesla’s concerns on India demanding high duties.
The minister answered by inviting Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk to manufacture e-vehicles in India, given the conducive environment for automobile manufacturing in the country.
However, Gadkari also said that in case Musk wants Tesla’s production and manufacturing to happen in China and then sell the finished products in India, then that may not be a very good proposition.
“It is a very easy alternative, if Elon Musk is ready to manufacture a Tesla in India, there is no problem. We have got all the competencies, the vendors are available. We have got all types of technology and because of that, he can reduce the cost”, he said.
Musk Still Provides No Clarity on Tesla Manufacturing in India
Despite the Indian government’s repeated offers to attract Musk’s Tesla to the Indian markets, the tech billionaire appears to now grow more distant from the idea of Tesla launching in India, unless the government does something about lowering the high import duties.
This comes at a time when reports suggest that the Indian team Musk had assembled last year for Tesla’s launch in the country, has now been diverted to work on projects undergoing in the Middle-East and the larger Asia-Pacific markets.
Nishant Prasad, thrusted with the responsibility of Tesla’s supercharger network at Tesla India has updated his LinkedIn profile to Charging Operations Lead-APAC.
Earlier, Musk had tweeted, “Tesla isn’t in India yet due to ‘Challenges with the government’”.