India

Flashback to when we reported that India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, met with some executives at Tesla, we now have, via the Indian Express, learned that India’s Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari, met with Tesla executives on the 15th to talk about introducing and increasing the adoption of “pollution-free road transport” with a focus on commercial and public vehicles i.e trucks, buses and two-wheelers.

Nitin hopes to accomplish this by having Tesla settle in India to create an “Asian manufacturing and assembly hub”. Gadkari goes on to state:

“the Indian government is committed to encouraging alternate pollution-free transport in the country by providing incentives to bio-fuel, CNG, ethanol and electric vehicles.”

Further, in his meeting with the Tesla team, he “offered up land near major Indian ports to facilitate export of their vehicles to South and South East Asian countries.”

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Elon Musk often acts as the defacto PR department for Tesla Motors and in a Tweet today – in the mist of the Model 3 unveil – the CEO announced that Tesla would be expanding into at least 7 more countries. The expansion includes 6 continents and includes the BRIC countries of Brazil and India, South Africa (CEO Elon Musk’s birthplace), South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and Ireland. The tweet left room for others that might not fit into the 140 character medium.
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India’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal recently announced plans for an interesting program that could see the nation’s whole car fleet becoming 100% electric by 2030. It represents one of the most ambitious goal for the electrification of transport in a large country.

The program would let people buy electric vehicles with zero down payment financed by the state and drivers can then pay for the vehicle at the rate they are saving on gas.
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