Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways confirmed that Tesla is coming to India in early 2021 and will start operations then, reported The Indian Express. Gadkari reportedly told the newspaper that Tesla will first start off with sales, and then potentially look at assembly and manufacturing based on the response it receives. “India is going to become a number one manufacturing hub for auto in five years,” Gadkari said, stressing on the push for electric vehicles.
ETAuto on Monday reported that Tesla may launch Model 3 first in India, with it being priced between Rs 55-60 lakh. Bookings will start in January, the report stated. The company had originally launched bookings in 2016 at $1000, but Tesla’s entry continued to be delayed.
The Model 3 is a fully electric sedan, and has a range of 500 km and a top speed of 250 km/hr. It was also reported that Tesla was in talks with the Karnataka government to set up a Research & Development centre as well as their manufacturing base in the state.
“We have reached out to Tesla for setting up a R&D centre in Bengaluru,” Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan said during the Bengaluru Tech Summit.
In October, CEO Elon Musk on Monday had said that the process to bring Tesla cars to India will begin in January 2021. Reacting to a tweet by Tesla Club India asking if there is an India team working on the next year for sure scheduled Tesla entry, Musk had said, "Will release order configurator probably in Jan."
Tesla sales teams were working on building custom sales and production orders for the India market, ensuring orders are complete and validated once the configuration is finished.
On several occasions earlier, Musk had revealed that he would like to bring Tesla to India, but in a 2018 Twitter post, he cited "some challenging government regulations" as a hurdle.
He also criticised the foreign direct investment norms for the delay in the electric car maker's entry into the Indian market.
"Would love to be in India. Some challenging government regulations, unfortunately," Musk had tweeted in response to a Twitter user who wrote "No Tesla in India" on his Twitter handle.
With IANS inputs