Tesla Makes Long-Awaited India Debut
CC-Transcript
00:00Alicia, talk to us about how significant this move is. Well, good morning, Hassan. It is a significant move in that after years of back and forth and stop start negotiations with the Indian government over its high and steep tariffs on car imports, Tesla has finally decided to enter the Indian market. Look for PM Modi, who has made local manufacturing the cornerstone of the Indian industrial push. This is not a very satisfying move given that Tesla is only going to make a bit of a cautious start, a soft landing, if you will, by importing cars into the into the Indian market to really test the waters first. What you're seeing is a Tesla launching with two experience centres, one here in Mumbai in the financial capital and one in New Delhi, which is set to open up later this month. So it is significant because I mean, it is a milestone, of course, because it is the world's most valuable company. India is also a complex market, too big to ignore. It is the third largest stock market in the world, so it does not have decided to dip its doors. It's not the kind of full fledged manufacturing push that India was hoping for, but it will allow the brand to really gauge demand for the market for its cars with with the country's affluent buyers. Way to debut. He had just been pretty low key. How do you explain the approach that Tesla is taking to a huge market like India? No, absolutely. It is low key, especially considering how the other global carmakers have approached the Indian market. So we're not really seeing a PR or a media blitz around this launch. There's no Bollywood celebrity cutting a ribbon here, and it is a very Tesla like playbook. Clearly, it is banking on the organic brand. All of that the brand, you know, has in the global markets to really do the work in India as well. The best way to look at these experience centers will be as kind of live market experiments. Tesla is about to find out how many people walk into these stores. The kind of buzz that the brand is able to generate and then how that buzz really translates to people wanting to pony up the cash and be a very steep premium to actually buy these cars in India. Big questions being asked right now. One of the key ones for for Tesla. He has three big questions that Tesla will have to address in India. The first one and the one to immediately address is around pricing with 70% import tariffs on test scores. They will fall in an entirely different price bracket than the Tesla cars do in the U.S. and Europe. So one will have to see whether even the luxury car buyers will want to pay these steep premiums for a Tesla badge in India. The second one is really the policy angle. For years, Tesla has tried to negotiate and impress upon India that it is its car market is highly protected, and particularly for EVs, which is a cleaner emission technology. There should be concessions given to new players wanting to access the market and gauge demand for their products. India is also currently discussing trade terms with the US and European Union. So if a favorite between will comes up there, then that may change Tesla's plans. And the biggest one, of course, is whether all of this will lead to manufacturing in India. And that's something we have to watch for.
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