Tesla starts hiring in India in a big deja vu moment

Tesla has started hiring staff in India, in another deja vu moment. After several false starts in the market, is it finally time for Tesla to launch in India? Tesla has been trying to get into the Indian automotive market for years, but it wasn’t able to find a way around the country’s protectionist effort, which includes high import duties on vehicles being imported.

The Indian government wanted Tesla to build a factory in the country, but the automaker preferred to first establish a market in the country through imported vehicles before investing in a manufacturing facility in the country.

Last year, we reported that India finally reached a compromise on its import duties on cars, opening the door for Tesla and other EV automakers to launch in the country.

The deal involves significantly reducing import duties for a limited number of electric vehicles as long as the automaker makes a significant investment and commitment to build an electric vehicle factory in India in the coming years.

It looked like Tesla had a hand in making that deal happen, considering the automaker was working closely with the government, and there were indications that Tesla would take them up on the deal.

CEO Elon Musk planned to go to India shortly after the deal was announced – hinting at closing a deal for Tesla to launch in the indian automotive market and building a factory there.

However, the CEO canceled his trip to India at the last minute and went to China instead.

It didn’t look like Tesla was going to take the Indian government’s offer as nothing was announced months for months.

In December, there were reports that Tesla might be looking for store locations in India.

Now, Tesla has listed a bunch of new job openings in Mumbai, including many related to selling and servicing vehicles:

The development comes after Musk met with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, last week. The meeting appeared to be more related to Musk’s role in the US government, but it’s not impossible that he negotiated a deal for Tesla to enter the market.

Under India’s blanket deal for electric vehicle automakers, the EV import tariffs are limited to 15% and apply to only 40,000 vehicles, no more than 8,000 per year.

The automaker benefiting from those lower import tariffs also needs to make a ~$500 million USD investment into local EV manufacturing over 5 years, but it has to start no later than within 3 years of starting the import of the EVs at lower tariffs.

Electrek’s Take

We have been there before with Tesla in India so I will believe it when I see it, but it’s possible.

I’m curious to see if Tesla is taking up India on this offer. I would be surprised. I think if Tesla is entering India, it would probably be under a different, more advantageous deal.