Winning Bizness Desk
Mumbai. The hope of US EV manufacturer Tesla coming to India has now faded finally as officials of Elon Musk's company have stopped talking to the representatives of the Indian government. People associated with the matter said that the government has understood that Tesla has some capital issues, due to which it is not going to make any new investment in India in the near future. According to reports, Tesla officials have not talked to Indian officials for the last 3 months. Musk was planning to come to India between 22 and 27 April this year, but suddenly he canceled this tour. Musk was also going to meet PM Modi on this tour. After the cancellation of Elon Musk's India tour, the company officials have not contacted the people of India's Ministry of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Finance, Commerce and Industry.
What are the reasons?
As many six possible reasons are being quoted for Tesla not coming to India. First of all, for the last two quarters, the company has failed to meet the demand of the global market because Chinese companies have started giving tough competition to Tesla. Due to this, Musk announced a major reduction in employees in April, and despite this, the growth of Cybertruck, made after many years of effort, is still very slow. Apart from this, the company is building a new plant in Mexico, which is also getting delayed. According to sources, the company has many capital issues for investing in India.
Musk was coming to India after the new EV policy of the government
Elon Musk planned to come to India after the government brought a new EV policy. Under the new policy, foreign companies making cars will have to invest at least $ 497 million (Rs 4,150 crore) in India for tax exemption and start production of EV within 3 years from a local factory / manufacturing facility. Notably, Tesla had expressed its desire to come to India in the year 2022, but then things did not work out between the company and the government. Tesla had asked the government to reduce the import duty on fully assembled vehicles from 100% to 40%. The company wanted its vehicles to be considered electric vehicles and not luxury, but the government had said that there is no intention to waive or reduce the import duty on any electric vehicles imported from other countries. The government had said that if Tesla commits to setting up a manufacturing plant in India, then a discount on imports would be considered. However, Musk wanted that cars should be sold in India first, after that the plant should be considered. Replying to a tweet on 27 May 2022, Elon Musk had said, 'Tesla will not set up a manufacturing plant at any location where it does not already have permission to sell and service cars.'
