Tesla has officially launched in India on Tuesday, with the opening of its showroom in the Bandra Kurla Complex business centre, in Mumbai.
Deliveries are set to start later this quarter, according to the configuration page of the recently refreshed Model Y.
According to the EV maker’s Indian website, orders for the SUV can be placed with a starting price of ₹61,07,190, equivalent to about $71,200.
India imposes a duty of 110% on imported vehicles that cost more than $40,000 — which has led Tesla to hold back on plans to enter the country before.
According to local media outlet New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV), many people have raised concerns not only about the high price of the vehicle, but also about how it can vary significantly from city to city due to differences in local taxes and registration charges.
In Mumbai, the vehicle has a “on-road” pricing of ₹61,07,190 ($71,200), while in Gurugram, Haryana, the pricing goes up to ₹66,76,831 ($77,800).
The outlet also mentioned road conditions, and the impracticality of self-driving in India’s unpredictable traffic.
According to Tesla‘s website, the Full Self-Driving (FSD) can be purchased for ₹6,00,000 ($7,000). However, the availability of the system is not yet confirmed for India.
The Model Y is produced in both the US and China.
It is priced from $37,490 in its domestic market (or $44,900 if excluding the $7,500 tax credit ending on September 30) and from 263,500 yuan in China (about $36,800).
According to a report by Bloomberg earlier this year, the first Tesla models to arrive in the country are Model Y SUVs shipped from the Shanghai Gigafactory.
Despite lower tariffs on automakers producing in India, the US brand does not intend to manufacture vehicles in the country, as confirmed earlier this year by India’s Minister of Heavy Industry.
According to registration data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (FADA), passenger EVs represented 4.4% of all vehicles sold in June, while hybrids accounted for 8.1%.
Despite the low EV adoption rate, the EV market share nearly doubled from June 2024, when it was only 2.5%.
The only brand selling only new energy vehicles (NEVS) in India is BYD, which sold 476 units in the country last month — from a total of nearly 2.98 million passenger cars registered.
The Chinese giant does not manufacture in India, however, contrarily to Tesla, it intends to. Business Standard reported earlier this year that the company is planning on constructing a EV and battery production plant in Telangana.
