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Tata Motors Corp. (TMC) said Wednesday that its first-ever sales in India were more than 5,000 cars, marking a significant increase from last year when it sold fewer than 400 units.
Tata Motors has sold more than 30,000 electric cars in the country since it opened in January, according to its website.
The company’s latest milestone was in the form of a car sales record for the first time since October 2014.
TMC sold nearly 1.5 million electric cars last year, surpassing its previous record of 1.3 million, according a Reuters tally.
India and Indonesia are both expected to become major new EV markets in the coming years.
Indonesia’s government has said it wants to have 1,000 plug-in electric cars on the roads by 2021, and by 2023, the country expects to have more than 500 million plug-ins on the road, Reuters reported.
India’s auto industry has long struggled to meet a growing demand for electric vehicles.
Last year, Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) and BMW Motor Co. (BMW) announced that they would build a joint venture that would produce plug-n-play vehicles for India, with Tesla’s car being sold to the government.
India is one of the most expensive markets for electric cars to reach, with a total of just over 1,400 such vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2018.
