Tesla can't afford to miss a piece of the large domestic Indian market: Union Minister Piyush Goyal

The age of electric vehicles is here and there is only one question on everyone’s minds. When is Tesla coming to India? Union Minister Piyush Goyal was recently part of a discussion with Network18’s MD and Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi at CNBC-TV18's India Business Leadership Awards (IBLA) where the latter asked Goyal about his recent trip to the US, where he toured the Tesla factory, and when Tesla would be coming to India.

Goyal playfully replied, “I think Elon Musk is so active on X, that he will be the person who will let us know when Tesla is setting up in India.” However, he did add that the era of electric vehicles has already arrived. In another two or three years, he sees almost 100 percent of new two-wheeler sales being electric. In three-wheelers, Goyal shared that we are already close to being 100% electric, some of them may be CNG-driven. In the four-wheeler space, we are less than 2% about 50,000 cars out of four million cars which are sold are currently electric

Many manufactures in India are making solid efforts to produce more electric vehicles as quickly as possible because the demand already exists and is continuously increasing.

“Maruti doesn't have a model as yet, they are planning to come out with something soon. Tata is already active in the electric vehicle space, Mahindra has come out with some fantastic offerings. So we will have Tata, we will have Mahindra, I do believe Maruti Suzuki after their merger with Toyota already has hybrids, but they're now coming out with an electric version in the next 6-8 months. So we'll see a lot of action on four-wheelers,” said added Goyal.

Thus, Tesla can’t afford to miss the bus. They will want a piece of the large domestic Indian market.

In 2016, the Union Minister made a prediction where he said that by 2030, all cars being sold in India will be electric vehicles. And, witnessing the growth since, his belief has only been made stronger. He has once confirmed that in the next seven years, every new vehicle sold in India will be an electric vehicle. 

“Can you imagine the game-changing dimension to the national economy when we reduce our crude oil imports, when our petrol-diesel consumption comes down, imagine the strength the Indian economy will have, imagine the reduction in carbon or the fuel smoke that we see all over the country. So I do believe we are well on track,” said Goyal.