US EV giant Tesla has been eyeing the Indian market for a long time now. And Indian customers are also eagerly looking forward to Teslas coming onto our streets. However, even though there have been multiple spotting of Teslas testing in India, there’s no sign of an official launch. Today, let’s try to dig into the question. Why isn’t Tesla launching in India?
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How it started
In August 2021, the company received permission to begin testing its products on Indian roads. And Tesla has been working on tuning their cars for the same ever since. Looking at this, many people started anticipating Tesla in India very soon, as soon as December 2021 even. However, that didn’t happen due to multiple technical and legal issues.
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What’s the current status of Tesla in India?
As of today, CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk has claimed that they are “Still working through a lot of challenges with the Indian government”. The most important one is import duties. Elon Musk has more than often pointed out on social media that exorbitantly high import duties are one of the biggest challenges Tesla has been facing in India.
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What are the current import charges?
As of now, India charges 100% duties on EVs priced above $60,000, and 60% duties on EVs costing above $40,000. With these charges, Tesla won’t be able to cater to a very large audience in India because even the entry-level models will cost upwards of Rs.80 Lakhs. This is the biggest drawback for Tesla in India since it will go against their claims of Teslas being cost-effective and pocket-friendly.
With all this in play, Tesla is in constant talks with the government about slashing the import charges, but things don’t seem to be moving forward. Elon Musk has also been trying to use social media to raise these issues, but things still seem meak. All things said, we do hope that Tesla soon gets to launch in India, at affordable prices of course!
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