“India has more promise than any large country in the world,” Tesla chief said.
Tesla and Starlink chief executive officer Elon Musk met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Following the meeting, Musk said he is confident that his automobile company Tesla will make a debut in the country “as soon as humanly possible.”
Calling himself a fan of the Indian Prime Minister, Musk said that “PM Modi really cares about India because he is pushing us to make significant investment in India, which is something that we tend to do. We just have to figure out the right timing.” Tesla chief added that “India has more promise than any large country in the world” and he is hopeful that they will be able to “announce something in the not too distant future.”
The meeting came on the heels of PM Modi’s three-day state visit to the U.S. starting Tuesday. Following the meeting, PM Modi tweeted, “Great meeting you today @elonmusk! We had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality.” To this, Musk replied, “It was an honour to meet again.” The Prime Minister visited Tesla Motors campus in 2015 wherein he was given a tour by the company’s CEO Musk.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time the electric vehicle company is discussing its plans to expand its foot in India. In the past, Elon Musk has shown enthusiasm for bringing Tesla vehicles to India and acknowledged that the EV maker was thinking about opening a factory in the country last year. The Musk-led company took a significant step towards entering the Indian market and established a subsidiary in the country in 2022 and even registered an office in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.
However, in May last year, the company said to put a hold on its expansion plans in the country after it failed to secure lower import taxes from the government. Apart from seeking lower taxes, Tesla also demanded to first test the demand in the country by selling its cars imported from its existing production hubs in the U.S. and China but the discussions ended in a deadlock. Musk said at the time that Tesla “will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars.”
Last month, however, the American automobile company proposed setting up a production facility in the country for the domestic sale and export of its electric cars. For this, Tesla also held discussions with Indian officials about incentives offered by the country for its cars and battery manufacturing.
