Maruti, Hyundai and GM cars become expensive

Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motors and General Motors (GM) have announced the first price hike of the year 2011. The three companies have pegged the hike between 0.5 per cent to 2.2 per cent starting this month. The rising cost of basic input commodities like rubber, copper etc has been troubling carmakers since the last year and with the continuing rise in prices of these commodities the carmakers have hiked the prices of their products.

Maruti Suzuki that offers some of the country’s bestselling models like Maruti Alto, Maruti Swift, Maruti Swift Dzire, Maruti Wagon R etc has hiked its prices by from 17 January, ranging between 0.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent for all models. The only exception to this hike is the new hatchback Alto-K10. This means the customers will now have to pay about Rs1,000 and Rs8,000 more across different models.

See More Maruti Wagon R Pictures                                                                                            Read More on Maruti Wagon R

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) that offers models like Hyundai i10, Hyundai i20, Hyundai Santro, Hyundai Santa Fe etc has raised prices of its models by 1.5 per cent for Santro, i10, i20 and sedan Verna models starting this month.

See More Hyundai Santro Xing Pictures                                                                            Read More on Hyundai Santro Xing

General Motors India too has hiked its prices by 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent early this month. This has translated to a price rise between Rs2,500 and Rs15,000 across models. The company offers cars like Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Beat, Chevrolet Captiva etc.

See More Chevrolet Beat Pictures                                                                                                Read More on Chevrolet Beat

The hike in the prices of Tata Motors cars came much earlier and its models become Rs3,000 and Rs15,000 dearer.

This could hamper the country’s fast growing car market in some way and the upcoming revision in interest rates could also mean higher lending rates by banks reducing the availability of easy finance for car buyers. However, with the country’s fast growth and its untapped potential the future of the Indian car market looks promising.