NEW DELHI: US-based electric car major Tesla plans to enter the Indian market during this summer, according to company's Chief Executive Elon Musk.
"Hoping for summer this year," Musk tweeted in a reply to a query on by when Tesla could launch its vehicles in India.
Last year in April, the company had stated that it planned to enter India with its Model 3 in 2017 while it began global rollout of the vehicle in late 2016. Model 3 is Tesla's most affordable car yet and achieves 215 miles of range per charge while starting at USD 35,000 before incentives. The company's others models include Model S and Model X.
In a visit to the company's plant last year, Union Minister of Road, Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari had offered Tesla land near major Indian ports to facilitate exports to South and South East Asian countries while asking the company to make India its Asia manufacturing hub.
In September 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Tesla's facility in San Jose and showed keen interest in some of their path breaking inventions, particularly in the renewable energy sector which can have multiple applications in remote rural areas.
In 2014, Tesla had said it was keen to enter the Indian market and even identified the country as one of the possible locations to set up a manufacturing plant in Asia. It, however, said high duty on imported vehicles and lack of a separate category for electric cars prevented it from selling vehicles here despite having a huge potential.