Change on cards for EV manufacturing policy
India is open to modifying its
electric car manufacturing
policy to factor in possibly lower import tariffs under the India-US trade agreement. The Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electric Passenger Cars in India
(SPMEPCI
) was announced in March 2024, but it is yet to be operationalised.
SPMEPCI planned to offer discounted import tariffs to high-end EV companies committing investments in India.
The scheme details have not been announced amidst lukewarm response from potential investors. "The guidelines could be launched in a few weeks," a senior official said while adding that a final nod from some ministries is awaited. These guidelines will spell out operational contours of the scheme, after which applications from EV companies can be invited.
The incentives can be modified once the India-US bilateral trade agreement is finalised.
SPMEPCI required applicants to invest at least ₹4,150 crore in EV manufacturing, offering in return a lower 15per cent duty for importing high-end electric cars. Beneficiaries also need to achieve a minimum domestic value addition (DVA) of 25per cent within three years, scaling up to 50per cent at the end of five years.
But recent considerations to lower import duties on cars following pressure from US President Donald Trump threatens to render the scheme ineffective. Earlier this week, Elon Musk-led Tesla officials red-flagged India's import tariffs on cars as a major deterrent for their entry to the country.
These comments were in the backdrop of India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) talks where import duties are a major flashpoint. Officials said India will tweak SPMEPCI if import duties on cars are lowered and incentives for local manufacturing need to be sweetened.
India currently charges an import duty of up to 100per cent on cars to protect its domestic manufacturing industry. There are various levels of duties on auto components as well. Trump first announced but subsequently paused reciprocal tariffs to fire up domestic manufacturing in the US. He has repeatedly criticised India's high import tariffs on automobiles and others that make US exports uncompetitive.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
21 minutes ago
- Time of India
China leaders take reins at TikTok Shop in US as sales miss goal
ByteDance Ltd., TikTok 's parent company, has been replacing US-hired staff near Seattle with leaders connected to China, aiming to replicate its e-commerce success in Asia after sales fell short in America. TikTok Shop initially set a goal to increase its US e-commerce business tenfold last year to $17.5 billion in transaction volume, but the company had to drastically lower that goal, according to people familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. TikTok established its Shop business in the Seattle area near Inc., the online retail giant it was aiming to displace. Meetings that used to be held in English are now often conducted in Mandarin and managers increasingly write in Chinese when communicating on Feishu, ByteDance's internal Slack-like app, with English-speaking staff forced to rely on the built-in translation function. More than 100 TikTok Shop employees in the US have been fired or have left amid confusion between leaders that has worsened the work environment, according to people familiar with the company. The cultural transition taking place in the company coincides with its fight for survival in the US — due mainly to the app's Chinese ties. A national security law passed by Congress last year requires TikTok's US business to be spun off from its Chinese parent company or it will face a ban. Lawmakers warned that TikTok's ties to China pose a threat to the safety and security of American users. President Donald Trump has twice delayed the ban — with legal assurances from his attorney general — and another deadline for divestiture looms later this month, though that might also be extended, Wall Street Journal has reported. ByteDance has said it doesn't intend to sell. The TikTok Shop near Seattle in February began requiring workers to be in the office five days a week for eight hours a day, according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg. The change is in contrast to some other major tech companies that still offer flexible work schedules, and has been particularly burdensome for employees who often join late-night calls with colleagues in Asia after they leave the office, according to former employees. US-based staff require human resources and manager pre-approval to work from home. The changes were introduced after Bob Kang, China-based global head of TikTok's e-commerce division, visited the office in Bellevue, Washington, earlier this year and found there weren't enough staff pressent on a work day, according to multiple people who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. Increasing influence Increasing Chinese influence over TikTok's fastest-growing business may raise questions about its previous corporate promise to distance the US operation from China. After Trump initially tried to ban the app during his first term, the company announced a security plan dubbed 'Project Texas' and vowed to wall off the app's US data and operations from any Chinese oversight. TikTok Shop is the biggest source of revenue for the video-sharing app besides advertising, and it has become a major investment area for ByteDance. Adding full-scale commerce to its eye-catching content and popular influencers sets it apart from rivals like Instagram and YouTube. The company still aims to challenge Amazon in major markets. To better compete, TikTok Shop recruited aggressively near Seattle over the past three years, targeting people with experience at Amazon, according to a review of Linkedin profiles and people who worked at both companies. In some corners of TikTok's Bellevue office of roughly 1,000 employees, the workflow felt like a remix of previous Amazon teams, the people said. But since January, growing tension in the teams below Kang and Nico Le Bourgeois, who oversaw TikTok's e-commerce operations in the US, became a distraction for staff who were often unsure about whose orders to follow, the people said. TikTok's uncertain fate in the US also weighed on morale. The company carried out a round of layoffs in April. A second batch followed in May. In the first round, Le Bourgeois was demoted when Mu Qing, a Chinese executive from ByteDance's e-commerce platform Douyin moved to the Seattle area to run TikTok Shop in the US. After the second bout, Mu sent an internal message saying Le Bourgeois was leaving to pursue other opportunities, according to a copy of the message seen by Bloomberg. Those cuts were intended to improve TikTok's 'efficiency,' according to former employees, though it wasn't clear to staff what factors contributed to a worker's efficiency rating. More like Douyin With these changes, ByteDance leaders are bringing in people who are familiar with what worked for the company in China, where Douyin, its TikTok clone for the Chinese market, has evolved into a $490 billion shopping phenomenon. In addition to Mu, who was the head of Douyin's e-commerce, six other leaders with Chinese backgrounds were appointed in April, according to a different internal memo from Kang viewed by Bloomberg. One challenge is that habits of many American users trend toward passive TikTok scrolling as opposed to making purchases in the app. Some US sellers told Bloomberg that they have also been reluctant to invest in the platform, given the possible ban. The final tally for 2024 sales came in at around $9 billion, according to an estimate by Singapore-based consultancy Momentum Works, far below the internal goal of $17.5 billion in transaction volume. A TikTok spokesperson previously called the $17.5 billion internal goal 'inaccurate.' TikTok Shop's US struggles haven't halted the company's global shopping ambitions. ByteDance in 2021 rolled out e-commerce services in countries including Indonesia, Vietnam and the UK. In Southeast Asia, it's already the region's biggest shopping platform after Shopee, according to Momentum Works. Last year, TikTok Shop opened in five countries in Europe, including Germany and Spain. The Europe expansion was delayed because the company first prioritised US growth, Bloomberg reported. A TikTok spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for comment for this story. This is a crucial month for TikTok in the US. The company will host merchants and creators in Los Angeles next week for a summit featuring some of the new leaders of the e-commerce unit. The current deadline for ByteDance to sell the TikTok's US operation is June 19 and there have been several interested suitors. The company came close to a possible spin-off in April to a consortium of investors that included Oracle Corp., but the deal was scuttled in part because of Trump's trade war with China. Meanwhile, the churn of e-commerce employment continues in the Seattle area. Current and former TikTok Shop employees told Bloomberg that they get hounded by recruiting messages from Temu , another Chinese e-commerce competitor.
News18
27 minutes ago
- News18
'Indira Gandhi Fixed Elections': BJP's Nishikant Dubey Cites 1975 Verdict To Hit Back At Rahul
Last Updated: The 2024 Maharashtra Assembly Election resulted in a sweeping victory for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, which clinched 235 seats in a commanding performance. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Friday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, urging him to revisit the 1975 Allahabad High Court judgment that found then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices. Dubey's remarks followed Rahul Gandhi's recent statement alleging that the BJP had undermined democratic processes by 'rigging" the 2024 Maharashtra election in its favour. 'Rahul Baba, how is the election fixed or stolen? Read the exploits of your grandmother, Indira Gandhi, which is the judgment of the Allahabad High Court," Dubey said in a post on X. राहुल बाबा इलेक्शन फ़िक्स या कैसे चुराया जाता है,अपने दादी इंदिरा गांधी जी का कारनामा पढ़िए जो इलाहाबाद हाईकोर्ट का जजमेंट है1. 1971 के चुनाव में सेना तथा उसके हेलीकॉप्टर का इस्तेमाल हुआ2. प्रधानमंत्री इंदिरा गांधी जी के चुनाव में शराब,कपड़ा खुले आम बाँटे गए3. हिंदू धर्म के… — Dr Nishikant Dubey (@nishikant_dubey) June 7, 2025 The Allahabad High Court, in its June 12, 1975 ruling, had found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral misconduct and invalidated her election to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli. The verdict led to her disqualification and became a key trigger for the imposition of Emergency later that month. Dubey also criticised the Congress party's track record on democracy, adding, 'The army and its helicopters were used in the 1971 elections. Liquor and clothes were openly distributed during the election of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Ask for votes in the name of Hinduism. Voters were brought in vehicles. Money is distributed indiscriminately. Government employees engaged in an election campaign. You create the election drama, your family ruins the country, and you will not get the liberty to loot the elections anymore." On Saturday, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Maharashtra assembly election held in November 2024 was 'rigged", and claimed that the same will be repeated in Bihar assembly polls due later this year. In a post on X, Gandhi shared his article published in a newspaper, explaining the 'rigging" in the Maharashtra assembly polls. 'Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024 were a blueprint for rigging democracy. My article shows how this happened, step by step," Gandhi said on X. The 2024 Maharashtra Assembly Election resulted in a sweeping victory for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, which clinched 235 seats in a commanding performance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) solidified its dominance by emerging as the single-largest party, securing 132 seats. First Published:
Time of India
27 minutes ago
- Time of India
Here's how FBI director Kash Patel got to know about the Donald Trump-Elon Musk ‘big' public fight
FBI Director Kash Patel learned about the public dispute between US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the taping of a Joe Rogan podcast . During the podcast, Patel was specifically informed about Musk's accusation linking Trump to the 'Epstein Files.' Patel, who has recently faced criticism from some supporters for distancing himself from conspiracy theories related to Jeffrey Epstein since becoming FBI director, appeared surprised by the tech billionaire's tweets about Trump's past association with Epstein. The interaction occurred as the relationship between Trump and Musk, who is a significant financial supporter of Trump's campaign and a figure in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), experienced a notable public breakdown earlier this week. Rogan paused his interview with Patel to inform the FBI chief of Musk's statements. What the FBI director Kash Patel said about the Trump-Musk dispute on Joe Rogan's podcast 'That's way outside my lane,' Patel noted, as Rogan asked, 'what the f**k' was going on between the president and his former 'first buddy.' About an hour into The Joe Rogan Experience recording, Musk responded to Trump's remark that he was 'disappointed' by the Tesla CEO's continued criticisms of the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' that Republicans are working to pass. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 2025: Steel Suppliers From Mexico At Lowest Prices (Take A Look) Steel Suppliers | search ads Search Now Undo After Musk's recent departure from the administration as a 'special government employee,' the tech mogul has become more vocal in opposing the president's legislation, arguing that it would 'bankrupt' the country. Shortly before Musk shared his X post, Patel had spent a large part of his Rogan interview trying to convince the conspiracy-minded podcast host that Epstein did commit suicide. Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, both of whom had previously supported the idea that Epstein was murdered in jail, have faced criticism from right-wing influencers for now stating that the available evidence points to Epstein taking his own life. As Rogan began speculating whether Patel and the FBI had footage of Epstein's island residence, the show's producer interrupted to inform them that Musk had just made his allegation about Trump. What to Expect at WWDC 2025: iOS 19, AI, M4 Macs & More AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
