Tesla has expressed its interest to set up a research centre in India and has now entered into talks with Karnataka government for the same.
Bengaluru is said to be the location chosen by Tesla to set up its research facility and thus, the firm has had exploratory discussions with the government officials of Karnataka on 10th September.
Another meeting is expected to take place later this month during which Karnataka government officials are likely to present a detailed proposal to Tesla’s executives.
Now the most valuable automaker in the world, Tesla has been looking to enter India for quite sometime. However, regulatory policies have been blamed by the firm for not entering the nation so far.
If the talks do end up successful, then India would become only the second country where the electric vehicle firm will have a research centre. The only other country to currently host such a facility is the USA.
Karnataka was the first to come up with a policy for electric vehicles among Indian States and with Bengaluru already hosting global and Indian firms, Tesla might have been tempted to look into situation there.
This development comes as a surprise because, after opening its Gigafactory in Shanghai back in January, Tesla was stated to also open a design and research centre in China.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, had in July indicated that the firm will look at installing another Gigafactory in Asia and in the same month, he said his firm’s cars will hopefully come soon to India.
Although in its infancy at the moment, the Indian EV market is expected to touch Rs. 50,000 crores by 2025, with over 3 million electric vehicles expected to get sold in a year. Tesla knows that India is a goose that lays golden eggs and would want to make use of the resources the country can offer in one way or the other.
Tesla India Research Centre
- Tesla looking at setting up research facility in India
- Enters into talks with the Karnataka government for the same
- Bengaluru is the proposed city for set up the centre
Source – ETAuto.com