Shubham Sawarkar
Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Ola, would not invite Tesla CEO Elon Musk to visit his state-of-the-art electric two-wheeler manufacturing factory in India because he believes that when India becomes a worldwide center for electrification, the Tesla CEO will have no choice but to come. According to Aggarwal, no single company has the right or entitlement to possess humanity’s future, which is electric mobility.
“Why should I invite Musk? It is he who should invite us as we have to take pride in our work,” Aggarwal told IANS. “No one company can bring true mobility to the world. Neither Tesla nor Ola. Our focus is on empowering our communities and building electrification for India and for the world, and genuinely creating the future industry right here,” he stated.
Aggarwal stated that the goal is to make India a global center for electrification, revealing that Ola Electric has begun testing an autonomous vehicle that will be released in the global market by late 2023 or early 2024.
“Once we achieve that,” he told IANS, “Musk will come on his own.” Despite big promises and a lot of blathering, Tesla is yet to arrive in India due to “government challenges,” namely high customs fees and a major requirement to build its vehicles in the country.
As Musk continues to seek tax breaks to sell his electric vehicles in India, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari recently stated that manufacturing Tesla in China and selling in India is not a digestible concept to “all of us.”
“If you start here, you are welcome, no problem. But manufacturing in China and selling in India is not a digestible concept to all of us,” he had said. Gadkari said that the country cannot appease one automobile company.
“India is a huge market. We have all the world`s automobile giants — BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Tototo, Honda, Hyundai — present here. If we give one benefit to one company, we have to give that benefit to other companies also. That is the practical problem,” he stated.
