Tesla sold 43 units in India in April, down 12% from the 49 units registered in March, according to Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations data.
The April figure represents Tesla’s fourth consecutive monthly figure below 50 units since the soft-start phase of deliveries that began in September 2025.
Tesla officially arrived in India in mid-July 2025 with its first showroom in the Bandra Kurla Complex. A few weeks later, the company opened a second location at IGI Airport, New Delhi.
A third location — its largest sales and service hub in the country, and first full-scale experience center in Gurugram, Haryana — joined late last year. The Bengaluru opening on Thursday brings the network to four locations.
The company opened on Thursday its first showroom in Bengaluru’s Whitefield district, which becomes its fourth Indian retail location and first in the southern region.
The Bengaluru facility, located at VR Bengaluru on Whitefield Main Road in the city’s Mahadevapura area, showcases both the standard Model Y and the recently launched three-row, six-seat Model Y L variant.
The opening expands Tesla’s Indian retail footprint to four cities — Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex, Delhi’s IGI Airport area, Gurugram, and now Bengaluru — alongside an after-sales service operation that became active in Whitefield from the same day.
The Sales Trajectory
Tesla’s Indian sales performance has been challenging from the outset as tariffs forced the company to price the Model Y considerably above the other markets.
The company began deliveries in July last year.
In September, it recorded 60 units, before falling to 40 units in October — a 33% month-on-month drop that established the early pattern of underperformance.
Tesla officially arrived in India in mid-July 2025 with its first showroom in the Bandra Kurla Complex. A few weeks later, the company opened a second location at IGI Airport, New Delhi. A third location — its largest sales and service hub in the country, and first full-scale experience center in Gurugram, Haryana — joined late last year. The Bengaluru opening on Thursday brings the network to four locations.November rose modestly to 48 units, and December reached 73 units as the company cleared its initial booking backlog and pushed through inventory units accumulated from canceled bookings.
The 2026 trajectory has been more difficult.
January registered 37 units, a 49% decline from December. February fell further to 29 units, the lowest single-month figure since Indian deliveries began.
March rebounded to 49 units, a 69% recovery month-on-month — likely reflecting some demand pull-forward ahead of the Model Y L launch. April settled back to 43 units, down 12% from March.
Cumulative deliveries through April 2026 stand at approximately 383 units across the first eight months of operations — well below the 2,500-unit annual quota that Tesla had originally targeted when it entered the Indian market.
The Inventory Problem
Tesla’s initial India shipment pattern was meaningfully smaller than the full annual quota.
The company had originally planned to use its complete 2,500-unit import quota, but reduced shipment plans after demand fell short of expectations.
To fulfill its existing bookings, Tesla planned to ship between 350 and 500 vehicles to India by the end of 2025, based on fully paid orders secured at the time.
Bloomberg later reported that approximately 300 Model Y units were shipped in the initial batch.
Between September and December 2025, only 217 vehicles were registered in the country — leaving meaningful inventory on the ground that the company struggled to clear, particularly after some early bookings were canceled.
Tesla began offering discounts on approximately one-third of its imported India inventory late in 2025, with deals of up to ₹200,000 ($2,215) on certain Model Y variants according to people familiar with the matter.
The discount strategy reflected the operational reality that Tesla had to clear inventory accumulated from canceled bookings before the booking-to-delivery cycle could normalize.
The Model Y L Repositioning
Last month, Tesla launched the Model Y L — a three-row, six-seat long-wheelbase version of the standard Model Y — at the Ballard Pier Downtown Experience Centre in Mumbai.
Priced at ₹61.99 lakh (approximately $74,500), the Model Y L offers a 681-kilometer WLTP range, 0-100 km/h acceleration in 5.0 seconds, and 2,539 litres of cargo space with the rear rows folded.
The six-seat configuration is significant in the Indian market context.
Indian premium-vehicle buyers have historically preferred large family vehicles with three rows of seating — a segment dominated by Mercedes-Benz and BMW, as well as legacy ICE flagships like the Toyota Vellfire and Lexus LM.
The Model Y L’s positioning targets that buyer segment with Tesla’s typical software-and-range pitch, while offering features the Indian premium-EV market has historically lacked: power-reclining captain seats in the second row, climate control across all three rows, an 18-speaker audio system, and Netflix integration.
The model is built on the same 83 kWh battery and 250 kW peak charging architecture as the Model Y Long Range, with Tesla claiming the L variant recovers 288 km of range in 15 minutes at a Supercharger.
Deliveries of the Model Y L are scheduled to begin in June 2026.
The April Model Y L launch represents Tesla’s clearest commercial response to the underwhelming standard Model Y reception — pivoting toward a family-vehicle configuration that better matches Indian premium-buyer preferences.
The India Pricing Structure
Tesla’s full Indian lineup now spans three pricing tiers, all available for online ordering.
The standard Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive starts at ₹59.89 lakh ex-showroom, with a 60 kWh battery providing approximately 500 km of WLTP range and 295 horsepower from a single rear motor.
The Model Y Long Range Rear-Wheel Drive sits at ₹67.89 lakh ex-showroom, with an updated 83 kWh battery pack and 340 hp motor delivering approximately 622 km of WLTP range.
The Model Y L Premium All-Wheel Drive starts at ₹61.99 lakh, with monthly financing options beginning at ₹49,000.
The Full Self-Driving package adds an additional ₹6 lakh ($7,200) to any variant.
All three variants are imported as completely built units from Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory.
The 110% import duty on CBU vehicles priced above $40,000 pushes the Model Y’s starting price in India to approximately $70,000 — and in addition, vehicles are subject to city-specific taxes.
In Mumbai, the standard Model Y carries an on-road price of approximately ₹61,07,190 ($71,200), while in Gurugram the on-road price rises to ₹66,76,831 ($77,800).
The Indian EV Policy Backdrop
Tesla’s India strategy has been shaped by years of friction with the Indian government over import duties and local manufacturing commitments.
The company registered its Indian entity — Tesla India Motors and Energy Pvt. Ltd. — in Bengaluru in January 2021, but spent the subsequent four years in unsuccessful negotiations over duty relief.
The breakthrough arrived in March 2024 with India’s Strategic Promotion of Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles Policy for Clean India (SPMEPCI), which offered import duty reductions to 15% from the standard 70-100% for EVs priced over $35,000 — but only if companies committed to investing at least ₹4,150 crore ($500 million) in Indian local manufacturing.
Tesla has explicitly declined to commit to local manufacturing, pursuing instead what the company calls a “retail-first” strategy.
That decision means Tesla continues to pay the full 110% import duty on its Model Y units, structurally constraining the model’s price competitiveness against locally-produced premium EVs from Hyundai, BYD, Kia, and the legacy German luxury brands.
In November last year, Tesla hired Sharad Agarwal — previously head of Lamborghini India — as a senior India executive, bringing premium-luxury retail experience to the country’s business.
The Charging Infrastructure
Tesla currently operates five Supercharger stations across India, with a total of 20 Superchargers and 14 Wall Connectors.
The first Supercharger station opened at One BKC in Mumbai in August, featuring four V4 Superchargers and four destination chargers. Four months later, the company opened its first charging site in Gurugram, also including four Superchargers and three destination chargers.
Tesla plans to add seven more Supercharger stations along major highways connecting Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
