Tesla marks formal India entry with Mumbai launch event
In an invitation to media late on Thursday, the carmaker said the July 15 event was the 'launch of Tesla in India through the opening of the Tesla experience centre at Bandra Kurla Complex' in the city's leading commercial business district.
Grappling with excess manufacturing capacity at its other factories and falling sales, Tesla has pivoted to selling imported cars in India on which it will need to pay about 70% import duty and other levies.
Commercially available customs records from January to June showed Tesla imported vehicles, chargers and accessories into India worth close to $1m, mainly from China and the US.
The vehicles included six of Tesla's best-selling Model Y at a shipment value of $32,500 (R579,426) each for five cars and $46,000 (R820,110) for the long-range version, as well as several Superchargers.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TimesLIVE
4 hours ago
- TimesLIVE
Chinese cars nearly double their European market share in 2025
Car sales across Europe declined in June, with a 4.4% year-on-year drop to 1.25-million vehicles, data from JATO Dynamics showed on Wednesday. While overall demand softened, Chinese automakers continued to gain ground, taking a record market share and squeezing several established European brands, the research data showed. Chinese automakers are expanding in Europe, breaking into a market traditionally dominated by European and American brands supported by their cheaper pricing amid a shift towards electric vehicles. This has stoked trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing, including a row over EU tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, imposed to protect European producers. Chinese brands nearly doubled their combined share of the European market to 5.1% in the first half of 2025, just shy of Mercedes-Benz's 5.2%, the report said. Registrations of Chinese vehicles surged 91% since the start of the year. BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda, Leapmotor and Xpeng were the five names fuelling the surge, with BYD alone registering 70,500 units in the first six months of 2025, a 311% jump from a year ago. Stellantis saw the steepest market share decline among major automakers, to 15.3% from 16.7% a year earlier. The second biggest decline came from Tesla, to 1.6% in the half-year period versus 2.4% last year. Registrations of battery electric vehicles (BEV) surpassed one million for the first time in the first half, with a 25% rise to 1.19-million units — 17.4% of the market. 'Persistently high prices, geopolitical and economic tensions with Europe's trading partners and the postpandemic market reality are behind the decline,' Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO Dynamics, said. 'The updated Tesla Model Y has so far failed to provide the expected sales boost for the brand,' Munoz said. 'At the same time, competition from BYD and Volkswagen Group is making it harder for Tesla to maintain its leadership position.'
TimesLIVE
3 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Tesla's new sales boss comes from IT, not the showroom
A relatively little-known information technology executive is running Tesla's sales team as the electric carmaker grapples with a drop in sales, according to people familiar with the matter. Raj Jegannathan, a senior executive with a wide purview including several IT and data functions, recently took over the sales role, said the people familiar with the matter. Some inside Tesla have interpreted this to mean Jegannathan has assumed the role of Troy Jones, Tesla's top sales executive in North America until he departed earlier this month after 15 years with the company, said the people. Jegannathan, who has recently grown closer to CEO Elon Musk, has no traditional sales experience, according to two people familiar with the matter and his LinkedIn profile. Reuters could not determine if it is an interim role. Demand for Tesla's cars in Europe and North America has dropped sharply. Last quarter its quarterly sales plunged 13% to the weakest in nearly three years due to a backlash against Musk's politics, Tesla's aging vehicle lineup and increased competition from rivals offering more affordable alternatives. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tesla's share price, which has fallen 18% so far this year, rose 3% on Friday. Jones, the latest in a string of high-level departures, managed the fallout as Musk's political affiliation with US President Trump prompted left-leaning consumers to shun Tesla. As Tesla's sales were dropping earlier this year, Jones implored managers to work on selling and pushed back against concerns over political headwinds related to Musk, according to a person who heard the comment. Other key figures who recently left include Musk's confidant Omead Afshar, who was in charge of sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe. Jegannathan's expanded role has been interpreted as taking over Afshar's responsibilities too, some of the people said. Milan Kovac, head of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot team, announced he was leaving in June. Other recent departures include top battery executive Vineet Mehta and software chief David Lau. Last year, Tesla faced a wave of high-level departures, including chief battery engineer Drew Baglino and global public policy head Rohan Patel. Jegannathan has spent 13 years at Tesla in technology roles. He joined in 2012 as a senior staff engineer with responsibilities for internet traffic and cloud security, according to his LinkedIn page. More recently he has helped develop Tesla's data centre effort in Texas, two people familiar with the matter said. His duties have expanded rapidly. Earlier this year, he became a vice president for IT/AI infrastructure, apps and information security, according to his LinkedIn page. In recent months he has taken over Tesla's vehicle-service operations, according to a person familiar with the matter and Jegannathan's comments on X. Jegannathan was among the Tesla employees seconded to Twitter after Musk's takeover of the company in 2022, according to a person familiar with the matter and a media report.
TimesLIVE
6 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Uber partners with Lucid, Nuro in $300m robotaxi investment
Uber will invest $300m (R5,339,670,000) in electric vehicle maker Lucid in a robotaxi deal that aims to start with one major US city late next year, the companies said on Thursday. Over six years starting in 2026, Uber will acquire and deploy more than 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs that will be equipped with autonomous vehicle (AV) technology from startup Nuro, the three companies said in a statement. The agreement illustrates the renewed plans and push for financing for self-driving cabs years after a first wave of autonomous driving investment produced only a limited number of vehicles. Tesla has recently launched a robotaxi trial in Austin and Alphabet's driverless taxi unit Waymo is speeding up its expansion. As part of their announced deal, Uber will invest hundreds of millions in Lucid and Nuro, which supplies self-driving technology to carmakers, the joint statement said. Of that, $300m will go to Lucid, the EV maker said in a separate filing to the US securities and exchange commission on Thursday. Lucid shares surged more than 26% to $2.95 (R52.50). They have fallen about 24% this year. Uber's latest move underscores its renewed push into the robotaxi space after exiting in 2020. Since then, Uber has pivoted to partnerships with several technology developers, including Waymo and Aurora. The deal with Lucid follows Uber's robotaxi agreement in April with Volkswagen that will supply its vans for commercial service planned for Los Angeles next year. Commercialisng AV tech has been much harder than anticipated with high costs, tight regulations and federal investigations forcing many, including General Motors' Cruise, to shut down. Some in the race include Zoox, which is testing a robotaxi without manual controls and plans to launch commercial services in Las Vegas this year. After years of missed promises, Tesla started a restricted trial with about a dozen of its Model Y SUVs in Austin, Texas, last month. CEO Elon Musk has said it will expand the service rapidly to other US cities this year. Waymo has been growing cautiously for years and operates in several US cities with about 1,500 vehicles. It crossed 160-million kilometres of autonomous driving this month. A prototype of the Lucid-Nuro robotaxi is operating autonomously on a closed circuit at Nuro's testing facility in Las Vegas, the companies said. "We are expanding beyond our traditional EV technology leadership and working on partnerships and going into areas that in the past we have not focused on," Lucid's interim CEO Marc Winterhoff told Reuters. Nuro, co-founded and led by former Waymo engineers, has expanded from making last-mile delivery vehicles to providing its self-driving technology for commercial and passenger vehicles. "We have other very active conversations going on the personal vehicle side, where we would integrate Nuro driver into vehicles that will be sold to end consumers," said Dave Ferguson, Nuro's co-founder and president. Nuro will need to apply for state level operating licences though it holds some licences from their previous delivery operations, he said. Separately, Lucid said it had proposed a one-for-10 reverse stock split of its class A common stock.
