Tesla to start selling cars in India early next year, Nitin Gadkari confirms Elon Musk arrival

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla will start selling cars in India in early 2021, said Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Royal Transport and Roads. Gadkari, who also runs the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, told The Indian Express Idea Exchange program that Tesla would start operating in India with sales next year. Earlier yesterday, Tesla boss Elon Musk was also seen on the social media website Twitter exchanging tweets about the company’s plans for India to become a reality next year.

Nitin Gadkari said that Tesla will start selling its cars in India from 2021 and then based on the response the company gets, it would consider setting up manufacturing and assembly lines in India. Fans of the electric vehicle maker have been waiting for the company to come to India but according to Elon Musk, the 30% locally sourced material criterion has delayed plans for so long.

While Tesla has stayed away from India for so long, the company operates a factory in Shanghai, China. The facility functions like Tesla’s Model 3 assembly line with plans for the Model Y in place. The first cars from the factory were delivered shortly before 12 months after the site’s classification for the factory.

Tesla is one of the world’s leading automakers with a market capitalization of $ 659 billion. This is well ahead of Toyota’s market capitalization of $ 215 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Tesla’s revenue amounted to $ 7.38 billion. Even in the year of the pandemic, Elon Musk’s signature has not stopped growing at an astronomical rate. In the latest quarter, Tesla posted revenue of $ 8.77 billion. Tesla was recently added to the S&P 500 index. So far this year, the firm’s shares have soared 669%.