Tesla Model 3 India launch has been on the cards for far too long and no end seems to be in sight at the moment.
Hyundai and MG have beaten the electric carmaker in the EV race and have launched their products, gaining the first-mover advantage.
However, there are plenty of Indians who reckon that Tesla cars are the future and are achingly waiting for the electric car(s) to be launched here.
One such person wanted to know about Tesla Model 3 India launch and sent a tweet asking Musk “When is the Tesla Model 3 expected in India? Booked over 4 years ago!!”.
Elon Musk who is active on social media responded to his potential customer – “Sorry, should hopefully be soon!”.
To those who do not know, the Model 3 is the most affordable car in Tesla’s range and has a claimed range of 480 km with a 0-100 km/hr sprint time of under 6 seconds.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has always blamed India’s FDI policy and duties on imported luxury cars for not entering the market.
After the duty and other taxes are added, the imported cars get costlier by 2.5 times, making it unviable for manufacturers to sell them here.
The recent tweet follows several previous occasions where Musk had stated that the India debut of Tesla cars will happen “soon”.
“Would love to be in India. Some challenging government regulations, unfortunately,” Musk had tweeted earlier about entering our market, but being unable to do so.
Last year, while interacting with students from IIT Madras, Elon Musk stated that Tesla electric cars may run on bumpy Indian roads by 2020.
In March the same year, he tweeted – “Would love to be in the country (India) in 2019 or next year”, consistently insisting that his firm would love to set up shop in our land.
China is the only Asian market where Tesla retails its cars and it also has a factory there. If it decides to sell cars in India, the Tesla Model 3 India launch would be dependent on cars shipped from China.
Prevailing tensions between India and China would make that another hurdle that Tesla would have to overcome.
But, there is hope. Musk is looking to set up a second gigafactory outside China and is said to have personally visited a few places this year.
The Tamil Nadu government wrote to Tesla and several other automakers to set up shop in the state and we have to wait and see if it pays dividends.
Tesla Model 3 India Launch
- Musk responds to tweet asking when will the Model 3 be launched
- Apologises and says “should hopefully be soon”
- Tesla is looking to set up its second gigafactory outside China
