Any incentives which India offers to facilitate local manufacturing of electric vehicles will be equal for foreign as well as domestic investors. The government is in the process of drawing up a policy to incentivise local manufacturing of electric cars.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade has been holding high-level discussions to put in place a scheme for subsidising electric four-wheeler makers linked to investments made by them producing vehicles in the country.

This comes at a time when US EV maker Tesla and Vietnamese firm VinFast are poised to enter India. Apart from homegrown companies Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, which already produce EVs locally, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai-Kia have announced significant investment to set up battery/battery-pack assembly plants. 

Local manufacturing would also boost employment generation while bringing down overall car prices. Consultations are ongoing to determine the threshold of investment required to be made by car manufacturers, to avail of benefits under the new scheme.