But Chinese suppliers could be critical if Tesla were to establish a plant in India and keep costs in check for a cheap EV. Instead, the Indian officials said they had suggested a workaround in which Tesla would emulate the approach of Apple (AAPL.O). The U.S. smartphone giant in recent months has obtained approvals to bring Chinese suppliers to India after they found local joint-venture partners. New Delhi in recent months has been approving some Chinese suppliers' JV partnerships with Indian companies on a case-to-case basis, one of the government sources said. One of the Indian officials said pairing local and Chinese players could work for Tesla.

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Persons: Dado Ruvic, Tesla, Elon Musk, Apple, China's BYD, Nikunj Ohri, Acharya, Nikunj, Aditi Shah, Aditya Kalra, Jason Neely Organizations: Elon, REUTERS, DELHI, Apple, Tesla, Tata Motors, U.S ., Thomson Locations: India, China, New Delhi, U.S, . New Delhi