Elon Musk on Saturday made a big statement about whether his company Tesla will enter into Indian market or not. Yesterday, a Twitter user had Musk if Tesla is manufacturing a plant in India in the future. To which Musk responded by saying, “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell and service cars”.
Ola Cabs CEO Bhavish Agarwal quipped, retweeting Musk’s statement and gave his reaction, “Thanks, but no thanks,” with an Indian national flag and a smiley emoji.
News agency Reuters this month reported that Tesla Inc has shelved its plan to sell electric cars in India. The electric carmaker abandoned a search for showroom space and reassigned some of its domestic team after failing to secure lower import taxes.
The Austin-headquartered automaker took the decision due to prolonged deadlock talks with the Indian government representatives as s Tesla sought to first test demand by selling EVs imported from production hubs in the United States and China, at lower tariffs.
However, the Centre is pushing Tesla to commit to manufacturing locally before it will lower tariffs, which can run as high as 100% on imported vehicles.
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari recently said, “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 competencies, the vendors are available. We have got all types of technology and because of that, he can reduce the cost”.
The minister also stated that Elon Musk and Tesla are welcome in India. “We don’t have any problem, but, suppose, he wants to manufacture in China and sell in India, it cannot be a good proposition for India. Our request to him is, come to India and manufacture here,” he had added.
Source: livemint.com
