He’s about as intelligent as he is flamboyant. A perpetual workaholic who would stop at nothing before achieving his goal, there’s about as much mystique as there’s an element of uncanniness about this South Africa-born American entrepreneur! Who doesn’t know about Elon Musk today? Probably, a man as famous as Michael Jackson or Michael Schumacher or someone who makes headlines about as frequently as Lionel Messi or Tom Cruise. As of early 2021, the big news regarding Elon Musk and his Tesla brand was that the state of Karnataka offered the celebrated American carmaker to enter its domicile and set-up a production facility. With the Indian government planning to ramp up the movement towards green cars and the electric revolution, the big march toward electric vehicle adoption was being seen as the big step in the right direction.
This is when, much like any big positive yet to strike that confounds problems, happened. While Tesla is present in India, having already registered an office and begun an Indian unit in downtown Bangalore, the brand is yet to launch a car, officially speaking.
More than anything else, what’s making news concerning the auto industry in India is the recent disparaging views offered by none other than the main brains behind Tesla himself- Elon Musk.
So this leads us to the key question- what’s the big issue, if there’s anything like that being faced by Elon Musk where it comes to this world-famous Tesla brand in India.
Well, here is what you need to know:
Apparently, while he is keen to launch the Tesla lineage of cars in India, there’s one big hassle that stares Elon Musk directly in the eye. What’s that?
The famous innovator, entrepreneur says that the import duty is very high here in India where it comes to Tesla cars.
Could this be the big major roadblock that’s emerged as the hurdle that Elon Musk needs to get out of his way?
Here is what one knows- quite close on the heels of the Union Budget that’s to provide tax relief for buying electric vehicles, the noted GST Council, during its meet in July, last year had cut the tax on electric vehicles (EV) from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, effective August 1, 2019.
Furthermore, what’s rather surprising to note is that apparently, according to industry sources, the import duty charged by Indian authorities are the ‘highest in the world!’
Did you know of this fact? If this isn’t a fact in any way, it is regardless, a claim made by Elon Musk, who one notes wouldn’t want to make a mess of things whilst he’s himself keen to enter the Indian market.
In a media quote regarding the current situation he confounds, the following is what the widely-followed entrepreneur had to say:
“We want to do so, but import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!” Elon Musk exclaimed. “Moreover, clean energy vehicles are treated the same as diesel or petrol, which does not seem entirely consistent with the climate goals of India,” the famous entrepreneur added.
Moving on, he’d also take to Twitter to exclaim his point of view concerning the launch of Tesla cars in India and the hurdles we’ve already talked about:
“I’m told import duties are extremely high (up to 100 per cent), even for electric cars. This would make our cars unaffordable!”
Now, if someone like Elon Musk is having to use the phrase unaffordable, then just imagine what crisis of faith one must be facing in this market? But, will things improve and can the authorities arrive at a situation where Musk’s dream project for India takes wings and full flight? We have to wait.