Cars to cost more from this month

Carmakers in the country have increased prices of its models to counter the recent rupee devaluation and rising input cost. The latest to join the bandwagon is Renault, who has increased the prices of its hot-selling Duster SUV by Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000 for the petrol and diesel variants respectively. The Duster was launched in July 2012 at an introductory price of Rs 7.19 lakh for its petrol variant, and it has since received over 20,000 bookings.

Maruti Suzuki too announced a price hike for all of its models by 1 percent (Rs 2,400-5000). Models like the Alto, WagonR and Estilo have seen a price hike in the range of Rs 2,400 to 3,600 across variants, while models like the Swift, Ritz, Dzire, SX4 and Ertiga will now be costlier by Rs 5000. However, some dealers in Mumbai and New Delhi are offering a hefty discount of Rs 5 lakh on the Kizashi.

Honda Cars India has increased the car prices of its selected models in the range of 0.2-2.6 percent as well, which amounts to Rs 1,000-13,000 for the Brio. The Jazz will be dearer by Rs 1,400-15,800, while the City prices will go up in the range of Rs 1,800-26,000. Audi India has also hiked the prices of its compact SUV, the Q3, to the tune of 1-2 percent (Rs 26,000-63,000).

Mahindra & Mahindra and General Motors too have indicated a hike in car prices in the coming days, but haven’t confirmed it as yet. Expect more carmakers to follow suit. However, Tata Motors has bucked the trend and launched a revised version of the Indica eV2 with a price cut of Rs 23,000.