Tesla Inc. is reportedly scouting for locations to open dealerships in three major Indian cities – Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru
In January this year, Tesla Inc. had registered its office in Bengaluru, hinting that the American electric vehicle manufacturer is all set to commence its operations in the Indian market soon. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had also previously said that Tesla will commence India operations this year.
Now, it has been reported by Reuters that the American carmaking giant is scouting for locations to open dealerships in three major Indian cities. Tesla is reportedly looking for commercial properties as large as 20,000-30,000 square feet each to open showrooms and service centres in the capital New Delhi, financial hub Mumbai in the west and tech city Bengaluru in the south.
However, it is not yet clear which out of these three cities will be the first to get a Tesla showroom. Global property consultant CBRE Group Inc has been hired for the showroom searches by the American manufacturer, and the consultancy is focussing on locations that will give Tesla easier access to affluent customers, sources revealed.
“If you look at Tesla’s showrooms globally, they are like experience centres. It would look at replicating that with some modifications for the Indian market,” said one of the sources. It was also previously revealed that, in India, Tesla will first stick to sales, followed by local manufacturing if there is enough demand.
Nitin Gadkari had also a made proposal to Tesla Inc. to manufacture cars in India rather than just locally assembling them here. The Union Minister said that India is willing to offer incentives to the EV maker in order to bring the cost of production in India even lower than that currently offered to the American EV manufacturer in China.
The Tesla Model 3 could be the first car by the American manufacturer to be launched in India, and a launch is expected to take place later this year. We expect the Model 3 to be introduced as a completely built unit (CBU) initially, and the car will likely be imported from Tesa’s Gigafactory in Shanghai, China.