BMW seeks temporary import duty relief for electric vehicles in India, to launch three EVs in six months

While it may be late to the party, BMW will soon join the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and Audi to launch a luxury electric vehicle (EV) in India, as the Germany carmaker readies to introduce the BMW iX SUV next month. The iX will be the first of three EVs to come from the BMW Group in the next six months, and before it embarks on its electrification journey, the company has expressed it hopes the Indian government will provide support in the form of temporary import duty reductions.

In a recent interaction, BMW Group India President and CEO Vikram Pawah said a reduction in import duties on electric vehicles (EV) for a limited time or for a limited number of units will help create demand in order to help manufacturing of such vehicles in India and bring new technologies quicker to the country. BMW, which has been locally manufacturing many vehicles in its India portfolio over the last decade and a half, considers creating demand is key to localisation of manufacturing.

The iX will be the first EV from BMW for the Indian market, and will be launched in December 2021. Image: BMW

"What we always do is we create demand for a model and then localise it. We believe these new technologies also have a potential to be localised in future, but you need to create a mass demand for that critical mass (for local manufacturing to be viable)," BMW Group India President and CEO Vikram Pawah told PTI.

The only way to do that, according to him, is to fast track it, create the demand before the infrastructure develops or create the demand which will create the infrastructure.

"Then we can localise by that time these technologies which are mature and then we can apply it into the country," he added.

BMW has joined Tesla and Hyundai in seeking a reduction in import duties on EVs from the Indian government. Image: Tesla

Pawah further said, "For that what we are seeking from the government is very simple thing, that yes, let us have some reduction in import duties, but only for limited time or limited quantities."

The rationale behind such a demand, according to him is "it will allow us achieve both the objectives. We will be able to keep manufacturing into India, and we will be able to bring these technologies quicker into India." Reiterating that the company has consistently maintained this stand, Pawah said, "That is what our consistency has been always that at any point any new technologies we should do that. It will allow even safety technologies, environment, green technologies to come into India faster."

The BMW i4 electric sedan is expected to arrive in India by June 2022. Image: BMW

Currently, India imposes 100 percent import duty on fully imported cars with CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) value more than USD 40,000 and 60 percent on those costing less than the amount.

BMW's views on the matter echo those of Tesla (which is understood to be pushing hard for a reduction in import duties ahead of its imminent India entry) and Hyundai, which also plans to introduce more electric vehicles in India.

Following the launch of the iX in December, the BMW Group will launch the Mini Electric in India by February 2022, and the second all-electric BMW to arrive will be the BMW i4 sedan, which will reach Indian shores by June 2022.

With inputs from PTI



from Firstpost Tech Latest News https://ift.tt/3I4yrjt

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elon Musk’s bid spotlights Twitter’s unique role in public discourse – and what changes might be in store

Twitter has been in the news a lot lately, albeit for the wrong reasons. Its stock growth has languished and the platform itself has largely remained the same since its founding in 2006. On April 14, 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made an offer to buy Twitter and take the public company private. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission , Musk stated, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” As a researcher of social media platforms , I find that Musk’s potential ownership of Twitter and his stated reasons for buying the company raise important issues. Those issues stem from the nature of the social media platform and what sets it apart from others. What makes Twitter unique Twitter occupies a unique niche. Its short chunks of text and threading foster real-time conversations among thousands of people, which
Read more

To reach net-zero emissions and remove CO2 from the air, scientists drawn up six priorities

Image
To reach net-zero emissions by 2050, global emissions must be cut faster and deeper than the world has yet managed. But even then, some hard-to-treat sources of pollution – in aviation, agriculture and cement making – may linger for longer than we would like. It will take time for clean alternatives to arrive and replace them. That means the world also needs to find and ramp up ways of taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere to stabilise the climate. Just meeting the UK’s net-zero target is likely to require the removal of 100 million tonnes of CO₂ a year , similar in size to current emissions from the country’s largest-emitting sector, road transport, but in reverse. The UK government’s announcement of £31.5 million (US$44.7 million) in support for research and development of carbon removal is welcome. And while trials of new tech will help, there are many social issues that need to be tackled if removing greenhouse gases is to succeed. Done right, carbon removal could be the perfect a
Read more

NASA is planning to partner with SpaceX to reboost the Hubble Telescope and extend its life

Image
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most important scientific achievements of the human species that has helped us understand space. It has been in orbit for over 30 years and has been feeding some of the most vital streams of information that has not only helped us steer our space exploration efforts, but also solve some of the more deep mysteries of the universe . NASA would love to extend its usable life for as long as possible. Unfortunately, for some years now, Hubble Space Telescope has been slipping out of its orbit. That is why, NASA is planning to team up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and place it into a higher much more stable orbit. NASA, SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut with the Polaris Program, hosted a media teleconference on Thursday to announce a feasibility study that will look into sending a commercial Dragon spacecraft to reboost the Hubble Space Telescope . This will, in effect place the telescope into a higher and more stable orbit than it’s curren
Read more