India is considering an EV tariff deal with Tesla, details emerge
According to reporting from the Financial Times, Tesla and India’s long courtship ritual could finally be making real progress. Negotiations appear to be on a path that would make it possible for Tesla to sell its existing cars in the country while it works on plans for a local manufacturing facility.
According to the report, the Indian government is considering sharply reducing its tariffs on imported electric vehicles — among the highest in the world — for a period of five years. Presently, the tariff in India assessed on any foreign EV costing under approximately $40,000 is 70%, with EVs over $40,000 subject to a 100% tariff. That means a brand like Tesla’s cars would cost double their MSRP, a cost that would be passed on to the customer — making them a nonstarter for virtually anyone.
Under the proposed scheme, India would lower the EV tariff to 15% for five years, though it’s unclear if the tariff would be higher or lower depending on vehicle MSRP, or flat across vehicles of all prices. The reporting suggests that Tesla must commit to building a manufacturing facility in the country to be eligible for the tariff reduction. Elon Musk had raised hopes of a deal like this coming to fruition with comments made in passing earlier this year, alongside reporting that Tesla sought to build a factory for a $24,000 vehicle in the country. Today’s news appears to confirm earlier reports on the subject back in May.
This Financial Times report is the first time we’ve had a sense of exactly how a Tesla-India deal would be architected. A senior Indian commerce minister is traveling to San Francisco for the APEC summit this week, and one of FT’s sources suggest this person could meet Elon Musk while there to discuss the deal. Granted, none of this is official — it’s all hearsay, seemingly from sources close to the Indian government.
Notably, FT’s report says the deal offered to Tesla would be open to all carmakers, but it’s unclear what exactly would be required for eligibility under the reduced tariff scheme. Minimum production commitments could conceivably be a component.
Electrek’s take
Given the back-and-forth between Tesla and India over the past few years, it’s tough to take this report with anything but a massive grain of salt. But it’s worth discussing, especially given the comparative reputability of the reporting source here.
India is a country with absolutely tiny EV share — electric cars make up under 2.5% of all auto sales in the country. And of those EVs, the overwhelming majority are cheap sub-$10,000 microcars, the likes of which I could never see Tesla producing. However, India is a truly massive country of over 1.4 billion people with a rapidly rising standard of living, and even a tiny share of a vast market could meaningfully impact Tesla’s global sales.
It’s hard to imagine what charging infrastructure would be like living with a Tesla in India, a country with highly inconsistent infrastructure development and a power grid that can become highly unstable, especially during the hot summer months. But as India continues to develop and modernize, it seems inevitable such difficulties will ease over time.
Whether this tariff deal actually ends up going anywhere is a whole other question. But this is the greatest level of detail we’ve seen for a potential agreement between the Indian government and outside automakers to make EV sales in the country a viable prospect. Tesla’s motivations here are clear: It wishes to begin selling cars in the country before it develops local manufacturing capacity to capitalize on existing demand for EVs. Given difficult economic conditions globally, the Indian government may also be feeling pressure to get high-profile manufacturing commitments at home, and more willing to budge than it has in the past. Until the ink is dry, though, nothing here is certain.
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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