Tesla finally enters India — nine years after Elon Musk first teased its debut

Tesla has made its long-awaited entry into India with the opening of its first showroom — 9 years after CEO Elon Musk first teased the transfer in April 2016 and following years of delays and shifting timelines in one of many world’s largest automotive markets.

Tesla calls the showroom an “Expertise Middle” and has situated it in Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complicated, the central enterprise district of Mumbai. The 4,000-square-foot heart options the Mannequin Y in rear-wheel drive (RWD) and long-range RWD variations, imported from Shanghai.

The Mannequin Y RWD comes with a price ticket of ₹59,89,000 (roughly $68,000), whereas the lengthy vary RWD is priced at ₹67,89,000 (approx. $79,000). The corporate can also be providing a full self-driving add-on at ₹600,000 (approx. $7,000).

Indian prospects can order the Mannequin Y beginning at present for registration in Delhi, Gurugram, and Mumbai by paying a non-refundable deposit of ₹22,220 (approx. $260). Deliveries for the RWD variant are anticipated to start in Q3, whereas the long-range RWD is slated to hit the roads in This autumn.

Forward of deliveries, Tesla has dedicated to establishing 4 charging stations in each Mumbai and Delhi, together with Supercharger posts and vacation spot chargers. The corporate can also be anticipated to open its second retailer in Delhi later this month as a part of its enlargement in India.

The automaker additionally plans to import vehicles from its facility in Berlin as soon as the India-EU free-trade settlement is signed, TechCrunch has discovered.

India is the fourth-largest automotive market after China, the U.S., and Japan — with nearly 6 million vehicles produced yearly, based on Indian authorities knowledge — however the nation has a comparatively small EV footprint, primarily captured by two-wheelers. The nation plans to have 30% of all its automotive gross sales be electrical by 2030, although.

In 2016, Musk announced plans to launch Tesla’s Model 3 in India and teased its local Supercharger network. The corporate even took $1,000 deposits from its potential Indian prospects, which it recently refunded because the launch was unsure.

Musk has mentioned Tesla’s plans a number of occasions in one-on-one conferences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior officers. Throughout the first few years of negotiations, the Indian authorities sought to persuade and even push Tesla to determine its manufacturing facility within the nation to provoke operations.

In 2023, India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal stated Tesla was planning to nearly double its component sourcing from India to as much as $1.9 billion that yr. Modi and his officers additionally held conversations with Tesla executives about establishing the corporate’s manufacturing presence within the nation. Nonetheless, Musk remained unconvinced about organising a neighborhood manufacturing facility anytime quickly, sources instructed TechCrunch.

Tesla has employed a number of folks in India and nonetheless has tens of jobs listed in cities together with New Delhi, Pune, and Mumbai. Within the meantime, the corporate doesn’t have a selected head in India. In Could, Prashanth Menon, who was overseeing India operations, resigned from his position and reportedly stepped down as chairman of Tesla India’s board.

Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja is at present overseeing India operations, with just a few native board administrators accountable for coverage, gross sales, and human sources, TechCrunch has discovered.

In 2024, New Delhi cut import taxes on EVs, permitting Tesla to herald vehicles from international markets at decrease levies. Tesla had lengthy raised issues about India’s 100% import tariffs on vehicles, however in its April earnings name, Taneja stated the corporate nonetheless noticed the market as “very hot” regardless of the hefty duties. Final month, India’s minister for Heavy Industries, H.D. Kumaraswamy, confirmed Tesla’s plans and said that the corporate is “not interested in starting manufacturing in India.”

The India launch comes because the Austin-headquartered firm is dealing with a troublesome time in main markets, together with China, Europe, and the U.S. Native gamers, together with BYD, which additionally operates in India and is among the many handful of electrical automobile corporations catering to Indian patrons, are consuming into Tesla’s market share in China.

Total, Tesla’s China-made EV gross sales increased 16% year-over-year — which incorporates each home gross sales in China and exports to Europe and different markets. However the firm’s Q2 deliveries declined 6.8% year-over-year — the third straight quarterly drop — as native opponents gained market share.

Equally, Tesla’s gross sales in Europe declined by nearly 28% year-over-year in Could for the fifth straight month, regardless of total European automobile gross sales growing by 1.9%. The corporate additionally skilled a 13% year-over-year decline in its U.S. sales for the primary six months of this yr, reaching 255,000. Furthermore, Tesla’s world gross sales dipped 13% to 443,956 items within the second quarter.