Elon Musk, a charismatic personality who is known for his developments and ideas and innovation and being the electric vehicle manufacturer.
In a response to a tweet, the chief executive officer of Tesla, says that he wants to open a branch factory of Tesla in India provided that there are a few changes. The tweet surfaced on July 24 where it was suggested Tesla would like to launch its cars in India but because of the country’s import duties it has been holding it back. A famous youtuber Madan Gowri requested to launch Tesla ASAP in India, to which was the response.
Elon Musk added that the import duties of the country are highest in the world because of its population and it is large.” We want to do so but import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country”.
Tesla is known for its electric vehicles which can be a good run in the market. Since we all know that resources of the world are depleting and there is a shortage of diesel and petrol which are also the reasons that the prices of those are high. That is why Tesla’s electric cars can make a difference. As highlighted by Musk, this problem is that the clean Energy vehicles are treated in the same way as diesel and petrol are treated in India, which is not consistent with the climate goals of the country.
He requested the Narendra Modi government that if there could be relief in taxes, temporary tariff relief, which would be highly appreciated by him.
India puts an import duty of 100% on fully imported cars. If this is the case that the cost of insurance on freight value is more than $40,000, the cars of Tesla would become highly unaffordable for the Indians.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has called out on the high import duty of India, but in 2019 he did it once too.
The current rates of import duty of 60% for cars priced below 40000 dollars and 100% for those above 40000 dollars the argument means that with 40% duty the cars can be more affordable by the Indians but it only depends if the local manufacturer of the Indians could pick it up.
The Indian market is very fancy and never changing so it is a highly confusing situation that the people would prefer electric cars. In March, Nitin Gadkari, who is India’s transport minister, said that they would offer incentives so that the cost of production of Tesla in the country is less when compared with China but only if Tesla agrees to manufacture them locally. Cutting on the import duty will make the demand for the electric Tesla cars high and will boost up production and affordability.