India’s regulations keeping us out: Musk

After four days and innumerable questions on why India was missing from Silicon Valley-based Tesla Motor’s global plans, its founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, said on social network Twitter that this country’s regulations were not conducive for the electric car maker to do business here.

On May 26, Musk had tweeted a map of the world, showing every location where the company had or would be installing its superchargers (charging stations), signifying where it was selling its cars. Not one location in India got a mention and several on Twitter questioned him.

“Would love to be in India. Some challenging government regulations, unfortunately. Deepak Ahuja, our CFO, is from India. Tesla will be there as soon as he believes we should,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday.

Musk is a voracious user of Twitter. On several occasions in the past, he has hinted at the company’s willingness to come to India. He even suggested it would be more beneficial to build a Gigafactory (giant lithium-ion battery factory) in the country than setting up a plant to build Tesla cars here.

However, after heightening interest and even opening of orders in April 2016 for the company’s Model 3 sedan here, Musk said last year that the local sourcing norms for single-brand retailing were keeping the company out.

“Maybe I'm misinformed, but I was told that 30 per cent of parts must be locally sourced and the supply doesn't yet exist in India to support that,” Musk tweeted in May 2017.

Apart from making cars and the batteries in these, Tesla also controls the retail and after- sales part of the business. Even outside its home market of America, it has owned and maintained dealerships by itself. By Indian rules, this makes it a single-brand retailer.