Tesla is actively laying out in India, the first model will open the market at a super low price

【PCauto】Currently, Tesla is actively promoting its development plan in India, and now has rented a space of 4000 square feet (about 371.61 square meters) on the ground floor of a commercial building in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai, carefully crafting its first showroom in India.

This area can be described as the commercial heart of Mumbai, surrounded by high-end office buildings, with huge traffic flow and consumption potential. The rent is estimated to be 900 rupees per square foot, and the monthly rent is about 350,000 rupees, which is converted into Thai baht is about 143,688 baht / Malaysian ringgit is about RM19,760. Such a high investment shows Tesla's high expectations for this showroom, wishing to open the door to the Mumbai and even the entire western Indian market.

After Mumbai, Tesla also plans to open another flagship showroom in Aerocity of Delhi. As the capital of India, Delhi connects political, economic, and cultural centers, and the Aerocity area is a hub for domestic and foreign traffic, attracting business people and tourists from all over the world, with a strong commercial radiation capacity. This progress is closely followed by the meeting between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the United States, which shows Tesla's focus on the Indian market and a firm commitment. It hopes to lay a good foundation for subsequent market development through the conversation between Musk and Modi.

In order to integrate into the Indian market, Tesla has also made great efforts in talent recruitment. Recruitment advertisements on the LinkedIn page of India show that Tesla is recruiting for 13 middle-level posts such as store manager, service consultant, service technician, etc., covering all aspects from pre-sales to after-sales, aiming to build a professional team familiar with the Indian market and proficient in local business, ensuring that consumers can enjoy quality services throughout the process from viewing cars, buying cars to using cars. At the same time, Tesla has also posted several job vacancies in India, including engineering positions, to reserve talents for possible local R&D and technical optimization in the future.

In terms of product strategy, Tesla will adopt an aggressive pricing strategy in the Indian market, with the target price for the first model set at below 2.2 million rupees. This is equivalent to about 942,741 Thai baht or about RM113,482 in Malaysian Ringgit. For comparison, the starting price of Tesla's current cheapest Model 3 is 40,000 US dollars, which is about 3.5 million rupees, or about 1,479,442 Thai baht/RM180,540 in Malaysian Ringgit.

By lowering the price of its first model, Tesla hopes to quickly attract mid-to-high end consumers in India and seize market share. Considering the high sensitivity of Indian consumers to price and their pursuit of high-quality travel tools, this low-cost entry strategy is expected to set off a car buying boom as it has in other emerging markets.

However, Tesla's journey in India is not smooth sailing, and the official launch date has not yet been determined. On the one hand, Tesla's opening of showrooms in Mumbai and Delhi is just an early step; on the other hand, Tesla is in tough negotiations with the Indian government over local production and factory establishment.

The Indian government, considering various factors such as protecting the country's industry and promoting employment, has strict requirements and complex approval processes for foreign car companies' investment and production in the country. Although Tesla intends to establish a strong presence in India, the initial models may be introduced in a completely imported (CBU) form to quickly test the market temperature, and local production will be initiated based on market feedback. This is undoubtedly a flexible and pragmatic market entry path.

In addition, Tesla's autonomous driving and fully self-driving (FSD) features have always been its technical highlights and selling points, but their availability in India will face many challenges. Currently, the infrastructure construction of roads in India is not perfect, the enforcement of traffic rules is not strict enough, and the conditions of network communication need to be improved. These factors make it extremely difficult for FSD features to take off in India.

Tesla has huge potential in the Indian market, but it's also fraught with difficulties. With the gradual advancement of its showroom construction and deepening negotiations with the government, Tesla is likely to reshape the structure of the Indian automobile industry.