US electric car giant Tesla CEO Elon Musk has finally marked his Indian debut by registering Tesla as a company in Bengaluru, capital city of Karnataka.
According to the details available on the Registrar of Companies website, Tesla India Motors and Energy Private Limited has been incorporated and the registered address is in Lavelle Road, Bengaluru.
"Tesla registered its Indian subsidiary with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in Bengaluru on January 8, with Rs 15 lakh authorised capital and Rs 1 lakh paid-up capital. Tesla India Motors and Energy Ltd has been opened in the city centre, with Vibhav Taneja, Venkatrangam Sreeram and David Jon Feinstein as its directors," said the company in its filing with the RoC.
Taneja is Tesla's Chief Accounting Officer while Feinstein is the Senior Director, Global Trade and New Markets, at Tesla. Sreeram is also a director in Xenon Automotive India Ltd since April 2014 and Clearquote Technologies India Ltd since August 2020.
Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on the other side tweeted, "Karnataka will lead India's journey towards Green Mobility. Electric Vehicle Manufacturer Tesla will soon start its operations in India with an R&D unit in Bengaluru. I welcome @elonmusk to India & Karnataka and wish him all the very best."
Karnataka is the first state in India to have an electric vehicle policy to encourage investments in the rising sector. A slide of start-ups like Ola Electric and more have set up their operations here. Apart from Karnataka, the US car giant is also in touch with other state such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh to begin its operations.
In December, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that Tesla will start operations with sales in early 2021 and then "maybe" look at assembling and manufacturing vehicles in India.
The move of opening their base in India will also open the country to select as one of the countries where Tesla cars can be procured. The company’s entrance comes at a time when the country is ramping up charging infrastructure for electric vehicles with the objective of meaningfully growing the proportion of electric vehicles plying on the roads. Besides electric vehicles, the US-based clean energy firm makes battery storage from home to grid scale, solar panels and solar roof tiles.
(With inputs from IANS)