Tesla to make India debut in 2021

Mumbai: Elon Musk's electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla will start selling cars in India in early 2021, said Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Real Transport and Highways. Gadkari, who also manages the Ministry for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises at an Idea Exchange programme said that Tesla would start operations early in 2021. Earlier, Musk was also seen on Twitter exchanging tweets about the company's plans for India.

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

While Tesla has stayed away from India for so long the company does operate a factory in Shanghai, China. The facility works as the assembly line for Tesla's Model 3 with plans for Model Y in place. The first cars from the factory were delivered just ahead 12 months after the site grading for the factory.

Tesla is one of the leading car manufacturers in the world now with a market capitalization of $659 billion. This is way ahead of Toyota's market capitalization of $215 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Tesla's revenue came in at $7.38 billion. Even in the pandemic struck year, the Elon Musk's firm has not stopped growing at an astronomical pace. In the last quarter, Tesla posted revenue of $8.77 billion.