Discounts are over! Starting 2008 your dream car may cost more. Three out of five largest car sellers have decided to raise price across all the models. Others will follow soon. Manufacturers have cited high raw material cost and freight cost for the price raise.
Maruti Suzuki:
Maruti Suzuki plans to increase prices of its cars across all models by up to Rs 12,000 from next month to offset the rise in input costs and freight charges.Maruti has written to its dealers across the country that the prices will be increased from January 2008.Maruti has told its dealers that the higher prices would be applicable on dispatches of vehicles from the date of announcement of the price hike and there would not be any price protection for pending orders at the company level.
Hyundai:
Hyundai Motors India Ltd will also raise the price of models up to two per cent by December-end or January next year. As indicated earlier, Hyundai will revise the introductory price of its new hatchback ‘i10’
General Motors:
General Motors has confirmed that prices of this model will head north from janauary. “We will be hiking prices of our products between 1-2 per cent across all models by January,” General Motors India Vice-President Marketing and Sales Ankush Arora told. A hike in price of spark to tavera in the range of Rs 2500 to Rs 13,000 from January is expected.
Ford:
Ford is also considering a price hike and it’s very likely.
However Honda,Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have confirmed that they are not planning any such move for now.
note: usually car manufacturers plays a gimmick(by pretending to raise price) to push volumes during the dull season. Also, these price hike will be nullified(as far as customers are concerned) if an excise duty cut is made in the budget. While the manufacturers make more money.
update: Honda Motor India Limited is planning to increase prices if locally assembled Honda’s by the end of the first month of 2008 to offset rising raw material prices. However, price of imported CR-V will remain unchanged. “We are looking at a price rise in January or February,” said a HMIL spokesperson. “It would be pretty much across the board, excluding the CR-V, which is imported,” the spokesperson added.