Tuesday, May 23, 2017
By Manoj Kumawat
Indian “Economic system” Not Suitable for Tesla Cars Says Elon Musk
Despite of the fact that Indian government has strictly implemented the decision of Supreme Court for selling BS IV compliant vehicles in India and also encouraging the sale of electronic vehicles across the country to control the problem of pollution. Elon Musk, founder of U.S based car maker Tesla Motors feels that economic system in India is still not suitable for the sale of electronic vehicles. This statement from Mr. Musk has broken the dream of many Indian car enthusiasts who dreamed for driving Tesla 3 car in coming months.
This statement from Mr. Musk was in reply to the tweet made by one of Tesla car aspirant asking about the company’s plan in Indian car market. According to Musk, support from economic system of the country is highly expected by the Tesla, in his words, "Maybe I'm misinformed, but I was told that 30 per cent of parts must be locally sourced and the supply does not yet exist in India to support that,”. This statement from Musk is just opposite to his statement of February 10, 2017 in which he had stated that Tesla plans to commence its operations in India from September 2017.
It would be interested to know that this dialogue from Musk has not only surprised the Indian car lovers but also the Indian government officers, especially about his statement on the outsourcing the components from local market. Commenting on this Mr. Sugato Sen, Deputy Director General, SIAM said, that there is no rule that compels the auto firms to outsource the components from local market. Moving ahead Mr. Sen that auto makers can import the vehicles priced below $40,000 by paying 60 percent tax on import duty. However for the cars priced above $40,000 the import duty is 100 percent.
Interestingly Honorable. Nitin Gadkari, the Minister of Road Transport and Highway had offered the American car maker the land for setting the manufacturing plant in India and develop it as its export hub. Commenting on this one of official from Ministry of Transport and Highways said that this offer to Tesla had been made without any condition and there were not on any conditions regarding outsourcing of components. According to him, the honorable Minister wants the car maker to become the manufacturing hub for Asian continent.
