If there’s one thing that you can trust with Elon Musk, it’s that every single new product or feature he talks about inevitably gets delayed. That fully autonomous cross-country road trip that he promised by the end of 2017? Still hasn’t happened. Outside of the new Roadster, though, Tesla does eventually build the cars it promises. Unless you live in India and are still waiting on that Model 3 you reserved. As ABC News reports, Indian reservation holders are largely giving up hope that it will ever happen.
Back in 2016, Tesla began taking reservations for the Model 3 in India. Production wouldn’t begin for another year, but if Tesla was taking deposits, it was only a matter of time before he started fulfilling India’s orders, right? That’s what Vishal Gondal, the founder and CEO of a health-tech startup, thought when he sent Tesla $1,000. At the time, he reportedly didn’t know how much the Model 3 would cost in India, nor did he know when deliveries would begin, but he was willing to wait.
Despite being a Musk fan, after a six-year wait, Gondal decided to buy an electric Audi instead. Eventually, he was also able to track down India’s Tesla sales manager and got his deposit back in January 2023.
One possible explanation for the long delay is that while the Model 3’s base price is lower than the average new car in the U.S., India, on the other hand, is a country where the typical car costs about $14,000. That means the Model 3 would be priced like a relatively high-end luxury car, and those who could afford it would expect the white glove treatment before, during, and after delivery. And as many people who’ve dealt with Tesla’s service department can tell you, repairs often take a long time even in the electric automaker’s home country.
“I think Tesla may be a great tech company. But they just don’t know how to sell luxury cars,” Gondal told ABC News.
While Tesla continues to kick the can down the road with Indian deliveries, other electric automakers have entered the market, and at this point, it may be too late for Tesla to break in. Hemant Suthar, who also reserved a Model 3 and eventually got his money back, told ABC News that he doesn’t think Tesla can compete anymore now that other automakers offer better, more luxurious EVs. Tesla will also likely face similar issues in every other market it tries to break into, too.
“What was a huge opportunity five years ago is now almost a weight around their neck,” Tu Le, founder of Sino Auto Insights told ABC News. “Every market they (Tesla) enter from now on, BYD is going to be looking at their watch and saying: What took you so long?”
The Indian government has also been working to attract new electric automakers such as Tesla. Earlier this year, it slashed its import tariffs on EVs that cost less than $35,000 as long as the automaker builds a factory in the country within three years. Rumors that Musk would announce an Indian factory swirled in April, but he canceled his trip at the last minute over “very heavy Tesla obligations.”
So will Tesla ever begin delivering cars to India? No one can say. Tesla didn’t respond to ABC News’s request for comment, and recently, Rajesh Kumar Singh, the head of an Indian agency to promote industrial growth, said in an interview that the Tesla executive he had been communicating with “got fired,” leaving the government completely in the dark. “We really don’t know,” he said.
