India has turned down a demand of Elon Musk’s Tesla for tax breaks to import electric cars, saying rules already allow bringing in partially-built vehicles and assembling them locally at a lower levy.
“We looked at whether the duties need to be re-jigged, but some domestic production is happening and some investments have come in with the current tariff structure,” Vivek Johri, chairman of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, said in an interview Thursday.
Tesla has yet to present a plan for local manufacturing and procurement from India, even after the government asked for it, Johri said. The Union budget earlier this week didn’t mention any tax breaks for cleaner but imported vehicles, even though the western state of Maharashtra — home to financial capital Mumbai — publicly backed Tesla’s demands.Chief minister from at least five Indian states have invited Tesla to set up shop in their provinces after Musk said last month the US electric-vehicle pioneer was still facing a lot of challenges with the central government.India has asked Tesla to consider importing so-called knocked-down units or partially built vehicles, which attract a lower import levy, instead of fully-built units.
