Telangana Minister Invites Elon Musk For Partnership, Says Will Help Tesla Through Challenges

There’s been a brand new development in Tesla’s much-publicised entry into the Indian market. Now, the Industry & Commerce Minister of Telangana, Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao, has replied to Elon Musk’s earlier tweet about working through challenges with the Indian government. Rao said that the state would be happy to partner with Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/Telangana. In fact, back in 2016, Rao had tested the Tesla Model X in India and praised Musk, as well.

Just so you know, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had earlier replied to a tweet by Pranay Pathole, who had posted a question related to Tesla’s launch in India – “Yo @elonmusk any further update as to when Tesla’s will launch in India? They’re pretty awesome and deserve to be in every corner of the world!"

To this, Musk replied, “Still working through a lot of challenges with the government". Previously, Musk had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cut down on import taxes on EVs before the company enters the Indian market, as told to Reuters. In fact, India has a customs duty ranging between 60 per cent to 100 per cent on imported cars.

Musk also said that taxes in India are among the highest in the world, and hence, wanted them cut before there could be an entry into the Indian EV market. This invited the ire of a lot of Indian automobile manufacturers, who felt that this may discourage investment in local manufacturing.

Furthermore, Musk-owned Tesla had received approval for three more trims of its electric vehicles in India, bringing the total to seven versions approved in the country, media reports said. Tesla India received approval for three more vehicles in the country, citing information from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Teslarati reported earlier.

In August, Tesla received homologation certificates for four of its car models. With three more certificates, the electric vehicle maker now has seven vehicles approved in India. The precise Tesla variants that received approval have not been specified. However, there have been sightings of Model 3s and Model Ys on Indian roads, the report said.

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The latest three vehicles with homologations certificates have not been named either, it added. A few Tesla test units have been regularly navigating through local roads in India.

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Still, the US-based EV maker has yet to make any serious moves toward local production.

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