Car prices to go up next year

Cars will get just heavier on the buyers' pockets as leading manufacturers including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and General Motors are planning to raise prices of each of their models starting from the last week of this month or early next month.

Maruti Suzuki, India's largest car maker, will raise the prices of all its models in January by Rs 12,000. General Motors, owners of the Chevrolet brand, will raise prices one to 2 per cent across models in the same month.

Maruti sells about 11 models in the country, which is also the largest offering by any manufacturer in India.

Company officials from the Korean car maker Hyundai Motors also said that a price rise of about 2 per cent can be expected for all its models by the end of this month or by early days of next year.

There will be a definite price rise in the recently introduced compact car i10 as it was only launched with an "introductory price' of Rs 3.39 lakh (ex-showroom). Prices of other models like the mid-sized sedan Verna will be followed. In India, Hyundai sells models like Santro, i10, Getz, Accent, Verna, Elantra, Sonata and Tucson.

A price hike in its range starting from Rs 2.82 lakh (the price of the base variant of Santro) to Rs 16.66 lakh (the price of Tucson) will mean an increase in the range of Rs 5,600 to Rs 33,300.

Similarly, a price rise in Chevrolet models of General Motors will mean a hike in the range of Rs 6,500 to Rs 19,000. The company sells six models in the country "" the small car Spark, Aveo U-VA, SRV, Aveo sedan, Optra and Tavera.