Ola differs with Hyundai, Tesla

Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal on Tuesday said he disagrees with Hyundai and Tesla that have called for lower duties on imported EVs in India, and exuded confidence in India's ability to build indigenously and attract global OEMs to do it.

Ola, which is popular for its ride-hailing services, is set to foray into the electric vehicles (EV) space with the launch of its e-scooters. The company had announced a Rs 2,400-crore investment for setting up a factory in Tamil Nadu for manufacturing these e-scooters.

"Strongly disagree with both. Let's have confidence in our ability to build indigenously and also attract global OEMs to build in India, not just import. We won't be the first country to do so!" Aggarwal tweeted on Tuesday.

Aggarwal was responding to a tweet about Hyundai MD S S Kim backing Tesla's call for lower duties in India on imported EVs, wherein the executive had reportedly said that lower duties will help grow the EV market.

Interacting on Twitter with followers who asked him to launch Tesla cars in India, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said, "We want to do so, but import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country".

"But we are hopeful that there will be at least a temporary tariff relief for electric vehicles. That would be much appreciated," he had said.

Currently, India imposes 100 per cent import duty on fully imported cars with CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) value more than $s40,000 and 60 per cent on those costing less than the amount.

Interestingly, Korean automobile major Hyundai and Kia have together invested about $300 million in Ola. The partnership, which was announced in March 2019, was formed to jointly develop electric vehicles and charging infrastructure customised for the Indian market.