Special treatment for Tesla not in India's interest: Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal

Ola founder has said granting special incentives to Tesla in India was not be in the best interests of the country, as the government has been working to accelerate the growth of homegrown champions in the electric vehicle (EV) sector, the Financial Times reported.

Bhavish Aggarwal, chief executive of SoftBank-backed Ola, along with a handful of other companies, including Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Hyundai, recently won a tender under India’s $2.4-billion programme to boost local battery cell production.

“Tesla is free to come in and put up shop here and sell its cars,” Aggarwal told the Financial Times.

“They just want to be treated differently from others, which I believe is not in the interests of India.” Tesla has not started manufacturing operations in India. Founder Elon Musk tweeted in May that “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars”.

Musk’s electric vehicle company has enjoyed tremendous success in China, where it helped develop a nascent industry. In return, Beijing offered the company incentives, including tax breaks and low-interest loans. Although Maruti Suzuki, a subsidiary of Japan’s Suzuki, sells more passenger cars than any other company in India, many foreign automakers have struggled in India. In September, US carmaker Ford decided to stop manufacturing in India after its top directors in India were granted bail in an alleged cheating case and after years of heavy operating losses.

After one scooter caught fire in March, Ola recalled the batch of 1,400.

Aggarwal called the incident “isolated”, adding: “In very, very rare cases this can happen as have happened with other manufacturers of other EVs.” He said Ola was co-operating with a government investigation launched in March into electric scooter fires, the Financial Times reported.