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Elon Musk’s Tesla is poised to make a splash in India, with a team arriving this month to explore potential locations for a new multibillion-dollar electric vehicle plant, Financial Times reported.
This move follows India’s recent decision to lower import tariffs on EVs, a concession Tesla lobbied heavily for. India charged a 70% to 100% import tax on automobiles, but that has now been reduced to as low as 15% if a company invests at least US$500 million and sets up a manufacturing plant in the country.
Musk had met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in June last year, expressing his desire to invest in India “as soon as humanly possible.”
According to the Financial Times, Tesla will prioritize automotive hubs in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, which all have established infrastructure and ports to facilitate exports. The focus on port proximity hints at Tesla’s global ambitions for the proposed factory.
Tesla has long had a deep relationship with China, which is both an important sales market as well as a manufacturing hub for the company. But local competitors like BYD have increasingly tightened competition domestically while rapidly expanding their affordable EVs to regions like Southeast Asia.
Perhaps in a bid to stop that momentum, Tesla is said to be aiming to produce a sub-US$30,000 model in India, appealing to consumers in Southeast Asia, the Gulf countries, Africa, and Europe.
See Also: Vietnamese battery startups eye more green financing to power renewables push
Editing by Putra Muskita and Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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