Electric carmaker
Tesla Motors
may have to put its India plans on hold owing to local sourcing norms and supply issues, the Silicon Valley company’s CEO
Elon Musk hinted in a tweet on Monday.
Responding to a Twitter user on the micro-blogging site on whether
Tesla
will launch in India in 2018 or 2019, Musk said, "Maybe I'm misinformed, but I was told that 30 per cent of parts must be locally sourced and the supply doesn't yet exist in India to support that."
In February, Musk had said Tesla may launch in India this summer. This was also in response to a Twitter user who wanted to know the timeline for
Tesla’s India launch .
Tesla started taking bookings from Indian customers for its $35,000 (over Rs 23.5 lakh)
Model 3
sedan in April last year. This was around the same time when it
unveiled the car to the world . The Model 3 is due to go into production late 2017. The starting price for the Model 3 is $35,000.
The booking, which is worth $1,000, saw the Indian corporates like Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy, and Fitness tech company GOQii’s Vishal Gondal sign up.
Tesla claims the Model 3 can run 346 km on full charge and go from 0-100 kmph in around six seconds, and is Tesla’s most affordable offering till date
Tesla Motors’ other offerings include the $85,000 plus (Over Rs 57 lakh) Model S and the Model X.
In September 2015, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi had visited Tesla Motors’ Silicon Valley plant and met Musk to discuss renewable energy. A month later, Musk had tweeted hinting his interest setting up manufacturing in India, saying, “Given the high local demand, a Gigafactory in India would probably make sense in the long term.” Tesla’s Gigafactory is a lithium-ion battery factory.
The Indian government has been rooting for electric vehicles and plans to
make the country a 100 per cent electric vehicle nation by 2030 . The state governments of Delhi and Karnataka have eliminated all local taxes on electric vehicles over concerns of rising pollution in cities.
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