A team of executives of Tesla Inc, the electric vehicle major headed by billionaire Elon Musk, will be visiting India next week at a time when the carmaker is considering to diversify beyond China.
The visit holds potential to create a thaw between Tesla and the Indian government, as Musk had earlier criticised New Delhi over its EV policy and the high taxes imposed on the import of vehicles.
While the meeting will be focused on discussing the local sourcing of EV components, as reported by Bloomberg, a possibility exists that a positive breakthrough may lead to talks over Tesla's potential entry in India for the domestic production of its vehicles.
Here's a look at Tesla's manufacturing presence worldwide so far:
The US-headquartered company currently manufactures its vehicles in China's Shanghai, Germany's Berlin, and Austin and Fremont in the US.
Tesla planned to expand the Gigafactory Shanghai, its most productive automaking plant, to add an annual capacity of 450,000 units, news agency Reuters had reported.
As per the estimates shared by the company in January, its plant in Fremont, California has the potential to add 650,000 units a year. The plant located in Austin, Texas can produce around 250,000 vehicles annually,
The production units in Shanghai and Berlin have a total capacity of 750,000 and 250,000 units a year, respectively. Apart from its vehicle production units, Tesla's plant in Shanghai also manufactures rechargeable batteries.
Tesla is also close to producing its first cars in Mexico next year, with the electric vehicle maker close to receiving its final permits allowing factory construction to begin in Nuevo Leon province near the US-Mexico border, the provincial governor said in a statement issued in March.
Musk had in November last year conveyed to South Korea that it was also among the top candidate locations for a factory it plans to build in Asia for making EVs, according to South Korea's presidential office.
In January, Bloomberg had reported that the Tesla chief was in discussion with the authorities in Indonesia to build production facilities with a capacity of one million units. The EV maker had signed contracts worth about $5 billion to buy materials for batteries from nickel processing companies in Indonesia, CNBC Indonesia had reported last year.
Tesla's possible entry in India, for manufacturing purpose, still appears to be far from now as Musk had earlier said that his company would not set up production plants at any location where it's not permitted to first sell and service its cars.
(With agency inputs)
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