On Friday, Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk hinted that Tesla will be coming to India next year. He said this while responding to a tweet posted by a Twitter user.

On several occasions, Musk has claimed that he will come to India but this may be the third time he has put a timeline. This time around he said it will be “Next year for sure”.

In June 2017, Musk revealed that Tesla was in talks with the Indian government requesting temporary relief on import penalties/restrictions until a local factory is built. However, the Indian government was not very happy with that request and failed to give him a red-carpet welcome.

In April 2016, at the time of the unveiling of the Model 3, Musk indicated that the pre-orders for the new semi-autonomous electric vehicle would be available in India, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore and Ireland. This was the first time Tesla founder hinted entry into Indian market.

Again in 2019, when the Avishkar Hyperloop team from IIT Madras had asked Musk when Tesla will be in India. He had reportedly said that it will come to India in a year (which means 2020).

Since then, many have raised this query on when Musk’s Tesla will enter the Indian market, to which he replied “soon”.

However, in 2018, he went on to add that while Musk would love to come to India, it is the challenging government regulations that are making the entry difficult.