Friday, February 10, 2017
By Kamal Swami
Tesla to Commence its Operations in India from September 2017
A recent tweet from Mr. Elon Musk the co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, has acted like fire in the jungle making Indian car enthusiasts excited to enjoy the drive luxurious electronic SUVs and sedans offered by Tesla in their own country. According to emerging reports, replying to a query made by one of the Indian car followers Musk replied that Tesla will kiss the Indian soil this summer during the month of September.
This tweet from Musk about entering in Indian car market has come almost after a year, when at the time of launching Tesla 3 model in global market, he had promised to bring the same car soon in India. Well, the reality about Musk’s statement will be disclosed in coming months, but for car aspirants it has brought a sweet smile on their face, despite of the fact that will the cars offered by Tesla meet their expectations or not, especially because of the price tags that are attached with these cars. If you are also among the aspirants who are keen to park Tesla at their auto yard it would be better to know some facts about Tesla cars, before making dreaming about them.
1. Tesla is one of the leading International car maker offering huge arsenal of electronic SUVs and sedans, especially three of its cars namely, Model S. Model 3 and Model S are high preferred and appreciated cars. It would now be interesting to see that which of these models succeed in grabbing the attention of Indian audiences, because there are lots of factors which determined the success of any vehicle in India.
2. The most important factor which highly influences the choice of Indian car buyers is the cost of the car, despite of concerning the fact that whether they are eco-friendly or not. This can be easily understood from the increasing sales volume of diesel vehicles in India, with slash in pricing of diesel.
3. Lack of infrastructural facilities: Although the government of India is keen to encourage the use of electronic and hybrid vehicles, but still the preparation regarding availability of necessary facilities about their drive are stagnated only in papers. Driving of electronic cars require presence of charging points at different locations, but in India there are few places where this facility is available. The owners having existing electronic car like Mahindra e20 have to charge their car either at home or at determined charging station. Therefore, before making its entrance in India, the U.S. based car maker will have to make an intensive study about the availability of necessary infrastructural facilities for its vehicles.
4. You will agree that a strong service network plays a vital role in strengthening the position of every new product in market, and from that point of view Tesla or any other car is not an exception to it. The success of Tesla will also be influenced by the fact that how effectively it is able to establish it service network across the country.
5. The cost of service and maintenance is another factor which might affect the success of Tesla in India. Undoubtedly the cost of running electronic and hybrid cars is lesser than petrol or diesel car, but the cost of repairing and maintenance is slightly expensive for these cars.
6. Going through the pricing factor of these cars, it would be interested to see that whether the car maker adopts the policy of “Make in India” or directly imports the vehicle. If so, then what would be the import duty for and will there be any exemption in tax for the buyers or not for buying an electronic vehicle.
7. To get rid of the above mentioned fact, the U.S car maker has initiated some alluring options for buyers in various countries. The company offers the facility of leasing and lending programs for the buyers of these cars. Will it adopt the same policy in India and will it succeed in receiving the support from Indian government will be quite interesting to see.
8. Moving ahead literally the cars from Tesla are accredited for the safety features offered in them. In case if company plans to eliminate any of the safety feature from its cars, going through the buying habits of Indian buyers, then it would really an injustice with the Indian buyers. This policy can affect the success of car maker in India, because going through the history of Indian buyers it is seen that in case if they are not offered the same types of features in their cars as offered in International market, the car maker had to struggle for its existence in India. It would be therefore better for Tesla to consider this factor before stepping in Indian car market.
9. The insufficient ground clearance of the vehicle might one of the factors which could impact the success car maker, especially its cars Model S and Model 3, which do not have significant ground clearance might get affected while running on Indian roads. Although, the car maker will ignore this fact, but anyone who has driven car in India understands that a hard hit from the broken roads is enough to affect the performance of the Tesla car.
