CEO Elon Musk’s has tweeted about facing governmental challenges in bringing Tesla to India
Telangana industry and commerce minister KT Rama Rao has offered to partner Elon Musk in setting up shop in the country after the Tesla CEO tweeted that the company was facing “challenges with the government”. Musk was responding to a question about his company’s plan to bring electric cars to India.KT Rama Rao offered his help to “work through the challenges” and also plugged the southern as a top business destination of the country.
Musk was responding to a query about when Tesla was planning to bring its cars to India. The Tesla co-founder has been pushing for lower import duties for its cars but the government isn’t keen on changing policies for a single company.
India levies a 60 percent import duty on electric vehicles that cost $40,000 or less and a 100 percent for those priced above the threshold to protect the domestic industry.
Tesla has complained that high import duties on completely build units of foreign automobiles would restrict the sales of its vehicles as well as that of electric vehicles in general. High duties would also make it tougher to commit to an investment in India, the company has said.
Karnataka, Gujrat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have all invited Tesla to set up a plant and the company has also received formal approval for seven of its cars to begin production.
In the past, Union government officials have said that Tesla can take advantage of the production-linked incentive schemes for the sector, including the one for advanced chemistry cells for electric vehicles.
