Tesla continues to describe India as a ‘very hard’ market due to high tariffs on imported luxury cars even as the world’s most valuable EV auto maker prepares to enter the country amidst ongoing bilateral trade negotiations between India and the US.

In a post-results conference call with investors and analysts, Vaibhav Taneja, the chief financial officer of Tesla, said the company wanted to be in India due to the huge untapped potential and was carefully working on plans to step into the market here.

“We’ve been working on getting into India. India is a very hard market,” Taneja said, adding that it would be 100 per cent more expensive to sell the same car Tesla is selling in the USA.

Tesla’s Model 3 starts at around $44,000 (₹37 lakh), while the Model Y starts at $47,740 (₹40 lakh). There has been speculation that the same variants may be offered in India at ₹60 lakh and ₹70-75 lakh, respectively. The first showroom of the company is likely to come up in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital.

Tesla CEO and close aide of US President Donald Trump Elon Musk has confirmed he would visit India later this year after a phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April, which followed a face-to-face meeting between the two in February in Washington.

“It would be a great market to enter because India has a big middle class, which we would want to tap in, and that is the market which we want to be in. But, again, these kinds of things create a little bit of tension which we’re trying to work around,” Taneja said, reflecting on the potential of the market which is besotted with high tariffs.

There is an expectation, however, that India may cut the duties on imported cars as part of the bilateral trade agreement with the US. Taneja said apart from 70 per cent import duty, there is also a 30 per cent luxury tax which makes buyers think they’re ‘paying too much’ for the car.