The Hindu Business Line : Tata Motors hikes prices of cars, utility vehicles

Mumbai, June 2 A fortnight after Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, the top two passenger car makers in the country, announced a hike in the prices of their offerings, the third largest passenger car maker Tata Motors also followed suit.

Tata Motors’ passenger cars will be costlier by 1 to 2 per cent, while its utility vehicles become pricier by 2 to 3 per cent. The hike will be in the range of Rs 3,500 to Rs 25,000.

Maruti Suzuki increased prices of its models from Rs 1,000 to Rs 18,000 on May 20. Two days later, Hyundai announced a price rise of 0.75 per cent to 2 per cent. Hyundai vehicles became costlier by Rs 2,000 to Rs 20,000 from June 1.

The rise in vehicle price is attributed to the escalation of input cost. “The price increase was necessitated due to the continuous increase in input costs,” said a Tata Motors’ release here.

Mr Ravi Kant, Managing Director, Tata Motors, at the announcement of annual results last week had said that the unprecedented hike in steel and tyre prices would affect the company. Tata Motors had hiked the prices by 3.5 per cent across the entire range of commercial vehicles two months ago.

According to the new pricing which will be effective from today, Tata Indica V2 (diesel) in Mumbai will cost Rs 3,500 to Rs 7,000 more than the former price.

The price of Tata Indigo will be increased to Rs 4.77-4.84 lakh range from Rs 4.7 lakh. The Rs 8.65-lakh Tata Safari Ex DiCOR will now cost between Rs 8.82 lakh and Rs 8.9 lakh. The base model of Tata Sumo will be costlier by Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000.

Tata Motors’ passenger car sales reported 4.5 per cent decline last year.