Elon Musk, owner of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing company Tesla, may visit India this month. News agency Reuters, quoting sources, has said that his visit may take place between April 22 and 27. This will be his first visit to India.
During this time, Musk can announce the location of the manufacturing plant in India. He will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, no official information has been given about this by Musk or the Prime Minister's Office.
Modi and Musk have met twice so far. We met at the Tesla factory in California in 2015. After this, both of them met in New York in June 2023.
On April 3, Britain's Financial Times had reported that Tesla will send a team to India this month, which will look for a place for an electric car manufacturing plant worth $ 2 to 3 billion (₹ 16 thousand crore to ₹ 25 thousand crore) in the country.
It was told in the report that the team's focus for the electric car manufacturing plant will be on automotive hub states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. The reason for this is the ports of these states, from where export of cars will be easy.
According to media reports, Tesla wants to manufacture and sell battery storage systems along with electric cars in India. The company had given a proposal to the Indian authorities for this.
Tesla had expressed its desire to come to India in 2022, but talks could not be reached between the company and the government. Tesla had demanded the government to reduce the import duty on fully assembled vehicles from 100% to 40%.
The company wanted its vehicles to be considered electric vehicles and not luxury, but the government had said that it had no intention of waiving or reducing the import duty on any electric vehicles imported from other countries.
The government had said that if Tesla commits to setting up a manufacturing plant in India, then exemption on imports will be considered. However, Musk wanted that cars should be sold in India first, after which setting up a plant would be considered.
Also replying in a tweet on May 27, 2022, Elon Musk had said, 'Tesla will not set up a manufacturing plant at any location where it does not already have permission to sell and service cars.'
