India Reiterates Pitch for Tesla To Make Electric Cars Locally (bloomberg.com) 72
India has once again called upon Elon Musk to manufacture Tesla cars locally instead of selling China-made electric vehicles in the world's fourth-largest autos market as demand for clean transport surges. From a report: "If Elon Musk is ready to manufacture Tesla in India, then there is no problem," Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said at an event Tuesday. But manufacturing cars in China and selling them in India is not a "good proposition."
Discussions between Tesla and the Indian government have come to a standstill over import taxes and a local factory. The U.S. automaker is seeking lower levies in India so it can test the market by selling cheaper imported EVs before committing to a manufacturing base of its own. India will consider Tesla's demand for a reduction in taxes only if it promises to buy $500 million of auto parts from local suppliers and ramp up domestic sourcing by around 10% to 15% each year, people familiar with the matter said in February.
Discussions between Tesla and the Indian government have come to a standstill over import taxes and a local factory. The U.S. automaker is seeking lower levies in India so it can test the market by selling cheaper imported EVs before committing to a manufacturing base of its own. India will consider Tesla's demand for a reduction in taxes only if it promises to buy $500 million of auto parts from local suppliers and ramp up domestic sourcing by around 10% to 15% each year, people familiar with the matter said in February.
For whom? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's certainly not as good for India as making them locally. But it's probably a lot more profitable for Tesla, or else they would build a plant in India. The problem with India is that their infrastructure is not of very good quality [worldbank.org]. If India wants to be more of a manufacturing hub, they're going to have to improve it. I know, chicken and egg, practical limits on spending, etc, but it's still a real factor.
Re: For whom? (Score:2)
Re: For whom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For whom? (Score:4, Informative)
The main problem with India is a chicken-and-egg problem with respect to sales. No automaker wants to jump straight to building a big factory (economies of scale = affordability) somewhere that they haven't even pioneered the market yet. But India charges protectionist 60% import tariffs on cars with a sale value of less than $40k, and 100% on cars with a sale value over $40k. So it's really difficult to pioneer the market.
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Well Musk setup a Tesla factory in Texas, their infrastructure is crap too. However Tesla is also an energy company, so they will actually have their infrastructure vertically integrated in the company, as it avoids roadblocks.
Having a location decision is actually a big deal. Having skilled labor local, Transportation, and being close to the demand.
These Gigafactories are huge factories. They make a lot of cars to cover a a lot of demand.
China covers Asia,
Berlin covers Europe
CA covers Western North Amer
Re:For whom? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that Tesla is wary of corruption in India and likely hood that local company like Tata [tatamotors.com] would gain unfair advantage while working to prevent Tesla from actually opening and running giga factory in Indai
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Like China is a good example of free of corruption and the gaze of the many Chinese Electric Auto makers who are trying to expand their market as well.
These problems like Infrastructure. corruption and all the nit-picky nonsense that countries and localities have, are actually not as big of a deal for a large company, then it would be for a new start up company.
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Like China is a good example of free of corruption and the gaze of the many Chinese Electric Auto makers who are trying to expand their market as well.
Maybe, but Tesla is a luxury brand. Chinese-made EVs are probably going to be angling for the mass market. The Chinese and Indian people who would buy Teslas probably aren't going to be interested in knock-off Luis Vuitton bags, either.
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Vietnam is a decent location geographically.
why ? (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:why ? (Score:4, Informative)
The answer is pretty simple
India Continues To Rank Among Most Corrupt Countries In The World [forbes.com]
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I don't understand. When I took the corruption test, I'm certain my parents handed me the correct answers through the window [dailymail.co.uk]. How could I only score 40?
Not just corruption (Score:2)
Corruption would be the simple answer if the PRC was significantly less corrupt than India. But this doesn't appear to be case, at least from the non-paywalled source I consulted [transparency.org], China with a corruption index of 45 versus India's 40 (the lower the number the greater the corruption). For comparison, Mexico's score is lower than both at 31, as are the scores of some of the less expensive Asian manufacturing hubs, like Thailand (35) and Vietnam (39).
Since India and China are of comparatively the same populati
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Yes, I think that the central authority of Xi is why Tesla chose China.
Xi can keep the regional party heads from attempting to take down Tesla, while Xi's own desire for positive image means he will attempt to deal an even hand
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Its not just the corruption that makes India bad, its the heavy push for foreign companies to transfer technology and experience to local suppliers, who then prioritise other local companies in an effort to undermine the foreign company.
This is the way India builds its technology base - “if you want to sell us something then we also get the means to build it”. Happens with all sorts of things, including military purchases.
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Its not just the corruption that makes India bad, its the heavy push for foreign companies to transfer technology and experience to local suppliers, who then prioritise other local companies in an effort to undermine the foreign company.
This is the way India builds its technology base - “if you want to sell us something then we also get the means to build it”. Happens with all sorts of things, including military purchases.
I was under the impression this was also the way the PRC did things, including with its long lost ally post-Soviet Russia, one reason perhaps why China was able to take a great leap forward with its stealth fighter and space missiles, er crewed rocket program. (To be fair, the PRC has also developed its own fighters and space launch capabilities independently of any Soviet/Russian technology.)
No thanks (Score:3)
Factories that employ humans suck. We need factories to be 100% automated. India's workers, like all workers really, are prone to strikes, racism (or in the case of India, casteism), discrimination, harassing each other sexually, and other stuff like that.
Besides, physical labor itself sucks. Why don't people go to a gym instead of doing physical labor? Or better yet, own shares in a factory instead of being a worker in it. There is more to life than working -- we don't need humans doing repetitive physical labor. We need robots to do that, humans should get paid off the robot's work. Just tax the robots or something FFS -- it is not hard. If we are going to force factories to hire humans, why can't we instead make them put in robots and tax those profits?
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Then what will we do with all the unemployed people? (it's a serious question. I'm not against automation at all, but what will all the people do, or how ill they survive, with no income/job?)
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One solution is to subsidize human population with profit margins gained by employing robots
yeah, I know I crack myself up sometimes
The obvious solution would be the elimination of excess human population [wikipedia.org]
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
How does grandpa live today? Pensions and social security right? How does a pension work? By having ownership (via investments) in companies and getting paid dividends. Since many people do not have money to invest, the government can invest or tax on their behalf. The companies would easily have the money to pay, because they are not paying human salaries.
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How does a pension work? By having ownership (via investments) in companies and getting paid dividends.
In most countries it does not work like that.
The working pay into a pension insurance.
The pension insurance distributes the payments to the former workers who are now retired.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
There is no way a pension that merely redistributes contributions will have enough money to pay all the pensioners, given inflation is what it is. The only way is by investing it.
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If you think so, then I suggest to read up how the German and French system works.
How the funk else would a pension system work, hu? Here we do not have the problem that people are without pension just because they were forced to invest when they were young.
They pay into a pool of money, the employer pays half of it, the pool is emptied every month and spread over the retirees ... simple.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
Do you know the Apple paid more in income taxes to the US ($13 billion) than itâ(TM)s entire global payroll? So think about it. If they were 100% automated it is guaranteed that their manufacturing cost of iPhones would be much less. Therefore if we made them pay a higher percent of taxes, that could EASILY pay the salaries of people who lost their Apple job to automation.
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If you can make them hire people, you can make them pay tax. Stop electing fools, and just get rid of the loopholes. They'll pay up.
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Theres a very good possibility that new, different jobs will be created.
Take a look at what has been automated over the past 60 years - for example, accounting departments for large companies no longer have rows upon rows of book keepers filling out ledgers and passing them back to the person behind for consolidation, spreadsheets ended that overnight. Have you heard of a company employing a typing pool these days? Draftsmen have gone from warehouse sized departments to a dozen people for large projects (
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New opportunities will arise, they always do.
*Past performance may not be indicative of future success
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Because the robots make no profits/earnings.
The shareholders do.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
Shareholders can be taxed. Company profits can be taxed. Which is easier .. forcing companies to hire workers who are less productive than machines, OR, making the company pay a tax (or dividend) to the government? The former is a lose-lose whereas the latter is a win-win.
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But that is not how it works :D
And your proposal is simply to far of from reality: first you need basic income. Then you need to find a way to tax a company that does not cripple it from further expanding its business. And a "robot" can not be taxed. How would know know which robot did which work?
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How would know know which robot did which work?
Hire someone with a clipboard to watch the robot?
Remote camera feed to cheaper offshore labor?
Just have another robot watch the first one.
It's robots all the way down...
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Hire someone with a clipboard to watch the robot?
That would spoil the idea of having a fully automated factory, and let it pay taxes - based on robots - or not? Would it not be simpler to just tax the factory?
Just have another robot watch the first one.
It's robots all the way down...
That should generate an awesome amount of taxes! Brilliant!
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It's robots all the way down...
That should generate an awesome amount of taxes! Brilliant!
Yes! At least until the robots also start doing the taxes ;)
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We need factories to be 100% automated.
It's an interesting thought-experiment...
Carry this to its logical extreme. All labour - everywhere - is automated. There are no waiters, delivery people, receptionists, roofers, or astronauts. Labour is now free of cost because all that remains is product. As in, the robots/AIs/whatever doing the labour cost money, but only their parts, not their assembly.
The only thing that has any remaining scarcity is product. Minerals. Metals. Water. Physical space.
At that moment, the interesting question
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Are you familiar with Ian M Banks and the Culture series?
"Money is a sign of poverty" is a common saying in the Culture.
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Huh? There is virtually no limit to physical resources. What resource do you reckon we will run out of? It is scary that you think we can run out of water. As long as we can produce energy (nuclear, solar, geo, whatever), we won't run out of water. Water shortage is merely a local distribution and purification problem.
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At that moment, the interesting question becomes: how do you divide up the limited physical resources that exist? How do you decide if a human being's share of the resources of the planet are sufficient for them to own an electric car? Or cell phone? Or house?
Simplest way would be to use something everyone is already used to.
Give everyone credits, and give everything a price.
Then if I want a bigger house and a smaller car that's my choice. Not everyone wants the same things.
Markets are also good at letting companies know what to produce. If lots of people are choosing better phones. Allocate more resources to the phone factories.
No point making all the extra phones though if people want something else instead. Let the people decide.
Re: Not just in factories that humans suck (Score:2)
So you believe your value as a human comes from being able to provide labor?
Seems sensible from India's point of view (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Seems sensible from India's point of view (Score:2)
And everything will be super expensive, and on top of that small countries will get screwed. The best solution is globalism, not nationalism.
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Trade and inter dependencies between countries go a long way to prevent wars
Start small (Score:2)
Test India's manufacturing capabilities and infrastructure.
Tesla could begin by building sub assemblies in India and see how that goes. Making the leather interior upholstery would be a good start.
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... Making the leather interior upholstery would be a good start.
I see what you did there.
India (Score:2)
India lost a lot of sympathy from me as an alternative for Chinese manufacturing with their neutral stand on Ukraine. Pretty shitty stance coming from the world's largest democracy.
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The buy most of their weapons systems from Russia
Supporting Ukraine in any way would eliminate their access and put them at a disadvantage to Pakistan and China
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Other countries sell weapons besides Russia.
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Name one that is even roughly comparable to US in types and capabilities of weapons, that is NOT Russia
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Why on earth is the US not an "other" country they can buy from? Literally the answer to your question is the US and you're telling me I cant answer that.
Re: India (Score:1)
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So what? It's not like Russia has the ability to take back the weapons they sold India. Meanwhile Indians are going to need to be trained to operate all those AA missiles they just bought from Russia, there's zero reason they cant be taught how to use an American or anyone else's system instead.
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UK, Fracne, Germany, Italy, Austria: in no particular order.
Regarding drones: Turkey.
If you think a bit more, you will find plenty, e.g. Sweden, Belgium.
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But they already have weapons from Russia and want the parts to maintain them.
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That's a reasonable point. On the other hand I believe a lot of Eastern European NATO members still use Russian gear and they don't seem to be worried about this.
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On the other hand I believe a lot of Eastern European NATO members still use Russian gear and they don't seem to be worried about this.
I don't think so. And if they do, they likely have the means to produce spare parts themselves.
E.g. the Mig fighters are basically all mothballed - despite the fact that they are excellent planes.
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E.g. the Mig fighters are basically all mothballed - despite the fact that they are excellent planes.
Well that's just not true. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
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Yes it is true.
No idea why you think single cherry picking a single counterexample makes "Mig fighters are basically all mothballed" wrong.
Most of the Migs the west has are mothballed. The're one or two nations that still fly a few handful, and that's it.
Your link is about "Last week, the Polish government unexpectedly offered to transfer its entire operational MiG-29 fleet â" 23 aircraft â" to the US in order to deliver them to Ukraine."
I mean: is not hart to grasp, right?
One country?
29 jets?
And?
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The article that I cited clearly states 3 countries. Considering the number of former Eastern Block nations in the EU that's hardly cherry picking, especially given that most of them are small countries that likely inherited very few, unlike Poland who easily has the largest military in Eastern Europe and features plenty of Soviet era hardware in its air force alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
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So we have three countries with Migs ... lets see how that proceedes.
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You really have no clue, do you ?
- Weapons cost money, Russian weapons are much cheaper than any other.
- Next best is to ramp up domestic production.
- (Non-Russian source) == (Westers countries). These countries are not in it to safeguard Indian borders. Most likely scenario would be right in the middle of transition, leave India high and dry when both the northers and western borders are hot. Like Europe advise, "Wy don't you trade more?"
Get a life. You should either read up or stick to your competencies.
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Hahaha, some one says something you disagree with and you're straight to hostility. You're just another ignorant internet troll and I have no interest in engaging with you any further.
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American companies should invest in democracies (Score:2)
China is an enemy of democracy and every investment strengthens their military which is inseparable from the economy.
To invest in China is to support oppression and genocide just like investing in Russia and should be considered socio-economic treason.
Beijing will never reform and China will remain a military and economic threat to the region. While naive techies (Aspergers is a helluva drug and not some unmixed blessing!) crave to mentally divorce tech and political realities, facts don't care about feelin
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Trade is the number one way to prevent war
FYI, if US style Capitalism cannot compete with state-run industry, then it belongs in the dustbin of history
China has proven that they will do what they will, and as long as they are not seeking immediate overthrow of bordering nations, then engaging them in trade, which will inevitably pollute the minds of the populace to expect a western-style living is the best way to go.
Russia could never cope with the idea of losing out to Western lifestyle, but China certainl
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Unlike Soviet Russia, the industry in China is not really state run.
The state is full or partly owner of some industries, but all the rest is mostly private.
China makes 5 year plans for the main industries and infrastructure, but not for "private business" - unlike Russia did.
To protect Brahmin / Bania hegemony / corruption (Score:2)
https://archive.is/VWFSC [archive.is]
"Behind every great fortune there is crime" --Balzac (b. 1799) https://change.org/p/13002798 [change.org]
https://chng.it/w8JQc6Yws8 [chng.it]
Caste system aka an Organized Mafia was born when the first con-man met the first fool in 700 BC as evident in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] / https://www.quora.com/Which-Ca... [quora.com] in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]