Tesla Hits a Roadblock with Entering the Indian Market

Tesla Hits a Roadblock with Entering the Indian Market

• By Staff Writer

Tesla’s entry into India is on delayed since 2019. The reason is that India levies a 60% import duty on EVs priced at $40,000 or lower, which rockets to a whopping 100% on EVs priced at more than $40,000. This would mean that a Tesla car, Model 3 for instance (which is the cheapest car that Tesla built), priced around $44,690 (Rs34 lakh rupees, approx), with 100% levied duties would cost Rs60 lakh in the country. This would make the Tesla EVs unaffordable in India.

Furthermore, the firm also refrains from manufacturing in India till it is permitted to sell and service its cars in the country, said the founder and chief executive of Tesla, Elon Musk, in a Twitter post on Friday.

“Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any place where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars,” Musk tweeted.

This does not mean that the government is reluctant or unenthusiastic about bringing EVs to India.

The Indian government is buoyant about bringing EVs to the Indian market and has introduced several incentives to propel manufacturing as well as demand for electric vehicles, such as the Rs10,000 crore FAME II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles in India) and the Rs18,000 crore Production-linked Incentive (PLI) schemes.