Tesla enthusiasts, we today have some unfortunate news in store for you! Do your remember how overjoyed we were when Tesla chief executive Elon Musk mentioned India will witness the Model 3 roll out in summer later this very year? Well, you can stop dreaming about driving one of these mass-production electric vehicles on Indian roads anytime soon — due to component supply issues.
This is exactly what Elon Musk’s latest tweet suggested in reply to a query about the company’s plans for entry into India. Much like always, he obliged by answering truthfully and brought up the country’s local sourcing production norms to simply confirm that the release won’t be possible according to the timeline mentioned previously.
@TheAvinashSingh Maybe I’m misinformed, but I was told that 30% of parts must be locally sourced and the supply doesn’t yet exist in India to support that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2017
Prior to this disappointing development, we had been eagerly waiting and sheepishly smiling for the much-awaited release of the Model 3 electric sedan in the nation in Summer (between July and September). If not the said schedule then we were hopeful that Tesla will be able to deliver the electric vehicles by late 2017 or early 2018. Now, the possibility of the release happening in the very near future has been eliminated by the chief executive himself.
There is no doubt in the fact that Musk plans to transcend his electric revolution into India’s rapidly scaling automotive market as well. He has enthusiastically talked about his plans for the same on multiple occasions, where he said that Tesla aims to develop a pan-India supercharger network to support the charging (read as sales) of its vehicles. And his tweet no suggests that the company is also looking to assemble Telsa vehicles in the country as well.
If not this year, Tesla is poised to step foot in India soon enough, which will soon become the third largest automotive market in the world. And that’s a potential market that cannot be left untapped by Musk, who can also attempt to attract neighboring countries to purchase his electric vehicles. With the increasing problem of pollution and smog, the Indian government is now also diverting its attention towards the promotion of electric vehicle in the country.
As for the Model 3, it is the company’s most affordable mass-production electric sedan till date. Starting at just $35,000, it will be packed with most of the capabilities of current-gen Tesla models but has been termed as a ‘smaller, more affordable’ version of the Model S. The company has already modified its facilities and is on track for the timely production and shipment of this vehicle. The automaker recently raised a whopping $1.2 billion to support the said production until the end of this year — with 5,000 Model 3’s produced each week.
