When Tesla allowed Indians to get their hands on its wildly popular electric cars for the first time, Vishal Gondal was among the first to grab the op

Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and chasing refunds

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2024-05-08 11:00:05

When Tesla allowed Indians to get their hands on its wildly popular electric cars for the first time, Vishal Gondal was among the first to grab the opportunity.

Within hours after the company opened its pre-booking portal for India in April 2016, Gondal, a fan of Elon Musk and Tesla, paid $1,000 (then 66,237 rupees) to pre-book the Tesla Model 3. At the time, there was no clarity on what the car would eventually cost in India or when the company would start delivering the vehicle to the country. But Gondal, who had driven a Tesla in the U.S. earlier, was swept with excitement.

For almost seven years after that, Gondal, founder and CEO of health-tech startup GoQii, patiently waited for his Model 3. By 2023, when there was still no sign of the car, he decided to cancel his booking — and that was the start of another ordeal.

Gondal had to chase Tesla’s India executive over emails for six months before he received his refund in June 2023. “There was no communication, no emails. And even years later, there was no apology [from the company],” he told Rest of World.