Car prices likely to rise

Our Corporate Bureau
03 December 2004

Hyundai Motor India has already announced that it would raise the price of its flagship Santro by Rs 8,000 and Accent GLE variant by Rs6,000. The company plans to hike the prices of other Accent variants as well and sources said the price of the Viva variant would be hiked by Rs16,000.

Hyundai plans to maintain the prices of the Elantra and Sonata and is in the process of analysing the impact of the price hike of the Getz. Hyundai had last raised prices by Rs 10,500 on its Santro and Sonata models.

The country's biggest car manufacturer, Maruti Udyog, and European auto major, Skoda Auto India, also said they were considering raising prices from January 2005 but did not indicate the quantum of the hike.

Jagdish Khattar, MD, Maruti Udyog, said the company was looking at increasing its car prices in January due to increase in input costs and emission norms.

Ford India is also said to be considering a price hike if the impact of the price hike in steel is significant. Tata Motors plans to hike car prices when the Euro III vehicles roll out in the next quarter of the present fiscal.