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Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, will open its first showroom in India on July 15 in Mumbai’s Maker Maxity building. Model Y SUV deliveries are expected to start by late August.
Tesla has signed a five-year lease from February 16, 2025, and will pay rent of about $446,000 (around Rs 38,872,030) for the first year for a 4,003 square feet (372 square meter) space. (Photo: AP)
Elon Musk-owned electric vehicle maker Tesla is set to open its first showroom in India on July 15 and is likely to begin deliveries as early as next month, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported.
Dubbed as an “experience centre”, the EV giant’s first showroom will be opened in Mumbai on Tuesday. Once the Mumbai showroom, situated in the Maker Maxity building in the business and retail hub of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) near Mumbai airport, opens its doors, visitors will be able to check prices and compare different models.
Additionally, the customers will be able to configure and order their Tesla EVs from next week.
The Mumbai showroom’s first week will be reserved for VIPs and business partners, according to sources. The general public will be able to visit the following week.
Tesla’s first batch of cars for India, the Model Y SUVs, has already arrived from its China factory and the deliveries are expected to begin by the end of August, the report added.
The Model Y, which is Tesla’s top-selling electric car worldwide, will test how willing Indian buyers are to pay high prices. Taking into account India’s 70% import tariff on fully-built imported cars under $40,000, plus additional surcharges, the cars are likely to sell at a substantial premium to the roughly $46,630 they go for in the US, the report added.
As a part of its entry into the South Asian nation, the EV maker had stepped up hiring and in the past was scouting for showroom sites in Mumbai and New Delhi, Reuters earlier reported.
As per the showroom registration papers, Tesla has signed a five-year lease from February 16, 2025, and will pay rent of about $446,000 (around Rs 38,872,030) for the first year for a 4,003 square feet (372 square meter) space, almost the size of a basketball court.
The rent would likely be increased by five percent every year reaching about $542,000 for the fifth year, according to the registered lease document provided to the news agency by analytics firm CRE Matrix.
After Mumbai, the US-based company is expected to open another India showroom in New Delhi (Aerocity) in late July.
Tesla’s long-awaited entry into the Indian market comes at a crucial time for the EV maker, which saw a slump in global sales in the second quarter that ran counter to Musk’s claim that business had recovered from blowback over his work in the Trump administration.
The US carmaker had been hunting for showroom space in India since late last year in order to start sales in the world’s third biggest auto market, after putting market entry plans on hold in 2022.
For years, Tesla faced hurdles related to localised factory investments, regulations, and high import taxes, factors which raised question marks over its arrival in the country.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump had said if Tesla were to set up a factory in India to bypass the country’s tariffs, it would be “unfair” to the US.
(With inputs from agencies)
Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben…Read More
Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben… Read More
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