Photo: Tesla Inc
The EV market in India, like in the rest of the world, is on an upward trend. Mordor Intelligence, an advisory firm we can assure you is not run by Sauron, estimates it might even reach a whopping value of $10 billion as soon as 2026, so car companies are obviously going to want to have a slice of the pie.
At the moment, the market is dominated by domestic models such as the Tata Tigor EV or the Tata Nexon EV, yet you can imagine plenty of people will be willing to pay a little extra for those sexy EVs from abroad. Everyone is making them nowadays, so there will be plenty of competition, but if there's one brand you can't dismiss regardless of the market, that's got to be Tesla.
Tesla was supposed to make its debut on the Indian market this year, but it looks like it's going to have to postpone it, and it could take a while. According to Autocar India, the EV was found to have an insufficient ground clearance for Indian roads, meaning it'll need to have its suspension tweaked before it is allowed to drive in the country.
Well, even if the authorities were to give the EV the green light as it is at this moment, you still wouldn't want to buy one since it runs a great risk of not making it past the first speed hump. The publication claims the Indian division of the IDIADA Automotive Technology, the agency that tested the Model 3, found out the electric sedan came stuck in 160 of the 200 speed humps it tried to clear (that's 80%).
They say the 140 mm ground clearance (5.5 inches) of the Model 3 needs to be increased by a minimum of 25 mm (one inch) to be made viable for the Indian roads, and since the car uses a classic coil spring setup, it can't be expected to alter its ground clearance on the fly.
The question now is how this modification affects the EV's road manners. We all know electric cars tend to handle reasonably well thanks to their low center of gravity, so what impact will raising that by one inch have? Well, for one thing, it'll stop the bottom of the vehicle from scraping against the speed humps, but it's the sedan's cornering behavior we're more concerned about.
Well, maybe "concerned" is too big of a word, but the extra height definitely won't help. However, a slightly taller Model 3 is still better than no Model 3 at all, so we're pretty sure the people in India are simply hoping for a quick fix and a new date set for the debut. However, Tesla might decide to push forward the Model Y instead since the SUV already has 170 mm (6.9 inches) of ground clearance.
Tesla was supposed to make its debut on the Indian market this year, but it looks like it's going to have to postpone it, and it could take a while. According to Autocar India, the EV was found to have an insufficient ground clearance for Indian roads, meaning it'll need to have its suspension tweaked before it is allowed to drive in the country.
Well, even if the authorities were to give the EV the green light as it is at this moment, you still wouldn't want to buy one since it runs a great risk of not making it past the first speed hump. The publication claims the Indian division of the IDIADA Automotive Technology, the agency that tested the Model 3, found out the electric sedan came stuck in 160 of the 200 speed humps it tried to clear (that's 80%).
They say the 140 mm ground clearance (5.5 inches) of the Model 3 needs to be increased by a minimum of 25 mm (one inch) to be made viable for the Indian roads, and since the car uses a classic coil spring setup, it can't be expected to alter its ground clearance on the fly.
The question now is how this modification affects the EV's road manners. We all know electric cars tend to handle reasonably well thanks to their low center of gravity, so what impact will raising that by one inch have? Well, for one thing, it'll stop the bottom of the vehicle from scraping against the speed humps, but it's the sedan's cornering behavior we're more concerned about.
Well, maybe "concerned" is too big of a word, but the extra height definitely won't help. However, a slightly taller Model 3 is still better than no Model 3 at all, so we're pretty sure the people in India are simply hoping for a quick fix and a new date set for the debut. However, Tesla might decide to push forward the Model Y instead since the SUV already has 170 mm (6.9 inches) of ground clearance.
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