Connect with us
red tesla model 3 red tesla model 3

News

Tesla readies Model 3 for India testing and potential sale by end of 2021

(Credit: nickyp3d via Instagram)

Published

on

Tesla is reportedly ready to send Model 3 units to India in preparation for testing phases in the country, according to local reports. Additionally, the all-electric sedan could be ready to be sold by the end of the year through Tesla’s online Design Studio.

Tesla India

For years, Tesla has teased the possibility of entering the Indian automotive market. However, as the company has plenty of demand in the country, not many of its cars are present there due to hefty import taxes that nearly double the cost of the vehicle. Elon Musk has hinted toward the possibility of bringing Tesla to India for several years, but the company made no real moves until late 2020.

Musk told a Twitter follower that 2021 was the year Tesla would finally enter the market. And so far, so good. The company applied for and obtained several business licenses so that it could sell vehicles and energy products and also registered its company in Maharashtra, according to documents released by India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Tesla has also hired several high-ranking employees for its operation in India. The company recently brought on Porsche alumni Samir Jain for the role of “Lead Aftersales – Regional Service Manager – India.”

Advertisement

Tesla CEO Elon Musk with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: Narendra Modi/Twitter)

Model 3 Testing in India

According to reports from India’s CNBC Affiliate TV 18Tesla plans to bring Model 3 vehicles to India by July or August for testing. The primary reasoning for the testing is so the vehicles can obtain approval from the Automotive Research Association of India, or ARAI. In addition, Tesla and ARAI will test the vehicles for crash safety, emissions, and other important automotive metrics that will be required before the sale of the cars.

Some sources in India say that Model 3s have already landed in Mumbai for testing, and more could be on the way.

Tesla Showrooms, Hiring Push, and Pace of Execution

Tesla is still planning for 3-4 showrooms in India in major metropolitan areas such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. While the executive team is currently composed of just a handful of members, Tesla will continue to try and add new executives to the team that will benefit the push in India. The automaker will look to expand the team within the next few months, and the Senior Leadership will operate out of Mumbai, the report said.

Advertisement

Additionally, the pace of the project will be a slow, calculated effort. Tesla will go slow with the plans, testing its sales and demand in major areas before expanding to other regions of the country. India is the second-most populated country globally, only trailing China, where the company already has a well-established consumer base. The company “may look at a franchise model for Aftersales Workshops in India, the report also mentions.

Potential End-of-Year Ordering

Tesla could open its India Design Studio on its website by the end of the year, the report states. Then, depending on the result of Tesla’s testing phase with the Model 3 in India, orders could begin to open up to potential buyers. Still, deliveries may not occur until late 2022 or early 2023 since Tesla will have to establish some manufacturing lines in the country. However, there is back-end work already underway by Tesla to the vehicle ready for approval and the potential sale by the end of 2021.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below, or be sure to email me at joey@teslarati.com or on Twitter @KlenderJoey.

Advertisement

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

Advertisement
Comments

News

Lucid unveils Lunar Robotaxi in bid to challenge Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race

Lucid’s Lunar robotaxi is gunning for Tesla’s Cybercab in the autonomous ride hailing race

Published

on

By

Lucid Lunar robotaxi concept [Credit: Rendering by TESLARATI]

Lucid Group pulled back the curtain on its purpose-built autonomous robotaxi platform dubbed the Lunar Concept. Announced at its New York investor day event, Lunar is arguably the company’s most ambitious concept yet, and a direct line of sight toward the autonomous ride haling market that Tesla looks to control.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.

A comparison to Tesla’s Cybercab is unavoidable. The concept of a Tesla robotaxi was first introduced by Elon Musk back in April 2019 during an event dubbed “Autonomy Day,” where he envisioned a network of self-driving Tesla vehicles transporting passengers while not in use by their owners. That vision took another major step in October 2024 when, Musk unveiled the Cybercab at the Tesla “We, Robot” event held at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 concept Cybercabs autonomously drove around the studio lot giving rides to attendees.

Tesla unveils the Robovan at ‘We, Robot’ event

Fast forward to today, and Tesla’s ambitions are finally materializing, but not without friction. As we recently reported, the Cybercab is being spotted with increasing frequency on public roads and across the grounds of Gigafactory Texas, suggesting that the company’s road testing and validation program is ramping meaningfully ahead of mass production. Tesla already operates a small scale robotaxi service in Austin using supervised Model Ys, but the Cybercab is designed from the ground up for high-volume, low-cost production, with Musk stating an eventual goal of producing one vehicle every 10 seconds.

At Lucid Investor Day 2026, the company introduced Lunar, a purpose-built robotaxi concept based on the Midsize platform.

Into this landscape steps Lucid’s Lunar. Built on the company’s all-new Midsize EV platform, which will also underpin consumer SUVs starting below $50,000. The Lunar mirrors the Cybercab’s core philosophy of having two seats, no driver controls, and a focus on fleet economics. The platform introduces Lucid’s redesigned Atlas electric drive unit, engineered to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper to manufacture at scale.

Unlike Tesla’s strategy of building its own ride hailing network from scratch, Lucid is partnering with Uber. The companies are said to be in advanced discussions to deploy Midsize platform vehicles at large scale, with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi publicly backing Lucid’s engineering credentials and autonomous-ready architecture.

Advertisement

In the investor day event, Lucid also outlined a recurring software revenue model, with an in-vehicle AI assistant and monthly autonomous driving subscriptions priced between $69 and $199. This can be seen as a nod to the software revenue stream that Tesla has long championed with its Full Self-Driving subscription.

Tesla’s Cybercab is targeting a price point below $30k and with operating costs as low as 20 cents per mile. But with regulatory hurdles still ahead, the window for competition is open. Lucid’s Lunar may not have a launch date yet, but it arrives at a pivotal moment, and when the robotaxi race is no longer viewed as hypothetical. Rather, every serious EV player needs to come to bat on the same plate that Tesla has had countless practice swings on over the last seven years.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

Published

on

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.

Advertisement

Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.

The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.

Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.

These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.

Advertisement

Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.

Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.

The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Published

on

Credit: @SecWar/X

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.

The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.

Advertisement

Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.

Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.

Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.

Advertisement

Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.

Continue Reading