The rumors of a Tesla factory coming to India are intensifying as a local chief minister appears to confirm Tesla’s plan to build electric vehicles in Karnataka.
Tesla has had a long history of flirting with the idea of entering the Indian market.
In 2016, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla had plans to enter the Indian market, but those plans have been delayed.
Tesla apparently did make some inquiries about establishing a presence in the country, but there was some confusion over Tesla’s ability to even import its vehicles in India back then due to regulations forcing it to have manufacturing capacity in the country before being able to import its vehicles.
Prime minister Narendra Modi even met with Musk during that time and later, India’s transport minister visited Tesla to offers up land to establish a presence in India.
Nothing came out of those efforts to bring Tesla to India until more recently.
Over the last few months, there have been more rumors of Tesla looking to establish manufacturing and/or research and development in India.
Local government officials have revealed talks with Tesla executives, and last month Tesla officially incorporated an Indian company in Bengaluru, the capital of India’s southern Karnataka state.
Now as part of a list of benefits promised to Karnataka in the Union Budget, the state’s chief minister, BS Yediyurappa, seemed to confirm Tesla’s plan to bring some sort of manufacturing effort in India (via The News Minute):
American firm Tesla will open a electric car manufacturing unit in Karnataka…
However, it is not completely clear if this “manufacturing unit” is actually going to be a factory.
Yediyurappa had previously tweeted that Tesla would establish a research and development center in his state before deleting the tweet.
Previously, during the reported talks with the government, several sites for a Tesla factory to produce electric cars and batteries have been proposed.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
