Tesla has recently setup its first office in India. The company has received invitations from several state governments to set up a manufacturing facility
Transport Minister of India, in an interaction with the Reuters, has said that the government of India will ensure that the production cost for Tesla is lower than that of China if the electric cars giant manufactures electric vehicles in India. India, at the moment does not have a comprehensive EV policy in place.
Gadkari, mentioning that with 80 per cent of the lithium-ion cells being made in India, the country can also be a major market for USA-based Tesla. It is to be noted here that Tesla has recently setup its first office in India. The company has also received invitations from several state governments to set up a manufacturing facility.
Tesla in India story so far
The government of Karnataka had recently noted that Tesla will be opening a electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Karnataka. Elon Musk, in December 2020, had tweeted and confirmed about Tesla’s plans for foraying into the country. Tesla was recently offered land to build an EV manufacturing facility by the government of Rajasthan. The Rajasthan government in the letter reached out to the company saying “consider Rajasthan state as a location for your future manufacturing unit In India.”
Tesla has registered its Indian entity in the name of Tesla India Motors And Energy Private Limited in Bengaluru Karnataka, according to documents filed in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). Tesla has incorporated itself with an authorised capital of Rs 15 lakh and a paid-up capital of Rs one lakh. Vaibhav Taneja, Venkatrangam Sreeram, and David Jon Feinstein were appointed as the three directors of the new company.
It is also to be noted here that one of the biggest amounts, in the new PLI schemes as incentive, has been earmarked for Advance Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery vertical at Rs 18,100 crore. Under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020, India has set an ambitious target to achieve six to seven million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020.
Interestingly, Gadkari, was among the first Indian ministers to confirm the arrival of Tesla in India in 2021. As many as 1.56 lakh EVs were sold in the country in 2019-20 (Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles) as against 1.3 lakh units in the previous fiscal. Out of these only 3,400 were electric cars.
