Tesla set to enter Indian market in 2021

With 2020 in its last quarter, Tesla is set to enter the Indian market in 2021. This comes at a time when Harley Davidson, American motorcycle maker, and General Motors are exiting the country.

Elon Musk, Tesla Inc. Chief Executive, confirmed on Twitter in a reply to a post with the photograph of a T-shirt having the message ‘India wants Tesla’. “Next year for sure,” Musk tweeted.

The American electric carmaker’s step into India will not be a cake walk. With India’s automobile industry already reeling from a COVID slowdown, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has drawn focus on Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) India, promoting the use and domestic manufacture of electric vehicles. Modi, in 2015, had visited its headquarters at Palo Alto, California and met Musk who gave him a tour.

Over the years, Musk has shown interest in bringing Tesla to India but in a Twitter post in 2018, he cited some challenging government regulations as a hurdle. He also criticized the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms for the delay in the electric car maker’s entry into the Indian market. A few months ago, in July, Musk had hinted at allowing the luxury car’s Indian fans to drive an electric Model 3 hopefully soon.

Globally, the luxury electric car maker has been making superb sales. Not to be pulled down by the on going COVID-19 pandemic and factory shutdown, the automaker said today that it delivered 139,300 vehicles in the third quarter of 2020. Tesla’s official numbers are broken down into two categories – the Model S and Model X and the Model 3 and Model Y. The latter duo was the company’s best-seller with the company delivering 124,100 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles last quarter. It delivered 15,200 units of Model S and Model X.