Tesla makes headway in Germany and India

Construction of the Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin is back on track, following a dispute with German environmental regulatory agencies. In India, Tesla is paving the way to launch on the Indian market in early 2021.

Work at the Tesla construction site in Giga-Berlin can continue. Brandenburg has agreed with Tesla on a longer deadline of 15 January for the payment of a security deposit in the amount of 100 million euros for possible dismantling costs, the German Environment Ministry told the news agency dpa.

Tesla plans to start operations in India in early 2021, as Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, confirmed to The Indian Express. Tesla will initially start selling imported vehicles and is apparently also considering production in India, depending on demand. Orders for the Model 3 in India could start as early as a few weeks from now, however, deliveries are not expected to begin until the second half of 2021. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also confirmed this in October, when asked about the American EV manufacturers progress to launching in India. The Model 3 will likely be the first Tesla vehicle for sale in India, with prices expected to start at 55 lakh INR (approx. €61,000).

Originally, Tesla started collecting deposits from interested parties in 2016 but the market launch was postponed. A year later, in 2017, Elon Musk blamed FDI norms for the delay: “Maybe I’m misinformed, but I was told that 30% of parts must be locally sourced and the supply doesn’t yet exist in India to support that.”

Next year for sure

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2020

The minister further stated that Tesla is not the only company looking at targeting the Indian electric vehicle market. He said that said a lot of Indian companies were also working on electrical vehicles that might be more affordable, but technically as advanced as the Tesla. “India is going to become a number 1 manufacturing hub for auto in five years,” Gadkari said. The growing EV industry in India is also building capacities in fuel cell vehicles, as well as watercraft. Tata Motors and Mahindra are also making notable progress in the development of electric vehicles.

spiegel.de (in German, Giga Berlin), indianexpress.com (launch in India)