Tesla opened the doors to its first showroom in India this week, and among the first visitors was Vishal Gondal — a longtime Tesla and Elon Musk loyalist who prebooked a Model 3 in April 2016, just hours after reservations went live. But despite showing up on day one, Gondal says he has no plans to buy a Tesla now.
“I felt a little bit underwhelmed,” said Gondal, founder and CEO of fitness-tech startup GOQii, after visiting the maiden Tesla showroom in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex.
Over the better part of a decade, Gondal held out hope for Tesla’s debut in India. But his excitement soured when he had to chase the company for a refund in 2023 — sending multiple emails just to get his $1,000 reservation fee.
“Trying to get the money back was a problem,” he told TechCrunch. “And the joke was, had we invested that money in Tesla IPO stock, we would have made more money.”
Gondal is among the earliest backers of Tesla in India — someone who prebooked a vehicle long before there were any guarantees. But nine years on, it seems many of those early believers are not celebrating the launch and have instead made up their mind not to go with Tesla, at least on its debut.
