Tesla may set up battery plant in India, says Elon Musk

Adding to the ongoing Digital India wave, Tesla founder Elon Musk has disclosed plans to make Lithium-ion batteries by setting up a Gigafactory in India. He didn’t make an explicit announcement, but said how such a move will make sense in the long term.

@GangsOfGtown Given high local demand, a Gigafactory in India would probably make sense in the long term.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2015

A report in the Business Standard  reveals that during Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley, he had discussed about setting up a battery making plant in India. Modi has reportedly set a ambitious target of generating 100 GW of solar power by 2022. A Gigafactory currently being built in Nevada, US claims to produce more batteries than the world population this year.

On Tesla cars, Musk reportedly said, “Auto import duties are prohibitively high. Hoping for a special category for EVs (electric vehicles)…Most of our discussion (with Modi) was on batteries.”

Electric cars use lithium ion batteries and Gigafactory is the term used for such as manufacturing facility that produces such batteries. Tesla is also known to be looking at the possibility of building a car factory in China. However, he later said he had been misquoted and it could take a few years.