Photo: ANP
American electric car manufacturer Tesla is likely to make a major investment in India. CEO Elon Musk said after meeting Narendra Modi during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to the United States.
“I’m very confident Tesla will be in India and we’ll do it as soon as possible,” Musk said after the meeting. “We don’t want to prejudge an announcement, but I think it’s very likely that there will be a significant investment in the relationship with India.”
Tesla and India revived investment talks in May this year after a year-long stalemate in negotiations. While automakers’ executives discussed local parts procurement and government incentives with government officials during a recent visit to India, it did not lead to a proposal to set up a plant in the country.
Musk, with whom Indian officials regularly communicate about making electric cars domestically, said he plans to visit the world’s most populous country by 2024. India wants to capitalize on deteriorating relations between China and the United States by offering the country an alternative to American companies that want to limit of its dependence on China. So Prime Minister Modi spoke to more than twenty important politicians and businessmen during his visit to New York.
Collaboration between US and Indian companies on new technologies and reducing trade barriers are also major topics in Modi’s meeting with US President Joe Biden, scheduled for Thursday.
Musk, in addition to being the CEO of Tesla, is also the head of a number of other companies, seeing opportunities for other investment projects in the country in addition to electric vehicle production in India. The world’s richest man also sees opportunities for sustainable power generation and energy storage in India. In addition, Musk wants to revive plans for his company, SpaceX, to provide high-speed Internet to remote Indian villages. Musk said last year that SpaceX was awaiting approval from the Indian government to provide internet services after establishing an Indian branch in 2021.
