No one believed Road Minister Nitin Gadkari’s claim of Tesla’s arrival in India by early 2021 until a few weeks ago. Billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla registered its business as Tesla India Motors and Energy Pvt Ltd at 14th Floor, Skav 909, Lavelle Road, Bengaluru – 560001. The company submitted paid-up capital worth Rs 1 lakh along with an authorized share capital of Rs 15 lakh.
As the news hit the market, Nithin Kamath, CEO of online brokerage startup Zerodha, decided to conduct a Twitter poll on India’s preference between Tesla Stocks vs Cars and the Indian market sentiment shocked everyone.
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Out of almost 15,000 entries, 12,075 (or 80.5%) people wanted to own Tesla stocks through Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or National Stock Exchange (NSE) while the remaining 2,925 (or 19.5%) people looked forward to buying a car. Interestingly, despite 2020, Tesla has reported straight heavy profits for the last five quarters and its American stock exchange rise has been spectacular throughout the year.
Experts suggest that the decision comes after the ability of people to easily invest a small sum of finance in order to buy a share in the company in comparison to the savings vacuum created on buying a Tesla car. The US-electric vehicle giant has entered the Indian market on a ‘sale only’ basis for now with the Model 3.
100% import duty will be applicable on Tesla Model 3 as the finished product will be directly sold in India. Therefore, the expected cost of the vehicle would be somewhere around Rs 60 lakh. This is likely to reduce by Rs 15 lakh once Tesla sets up a manufacturing plant in India. Depending upon the market response, this could be achieved by the end of 2021.
According to companiesmarketcap.com, Tesla’s current market cap is set at $783 billion in comparison to Toyota’s $208.2 billion.