Tata Motors plans to hike passenger vehicles prices

Tata Motors on Monday said it plans to increase prices of its passenger vehicle range due to increase in input costs.

The auto major did not share details on the time frame of the intended price hike but noted that would happen "shortly".

The company intends to shortly mark an appropriate increase in prices of its range of cars and SUVs, Tata Motors said in a statement.

The steep climb in overall input costs, especially due to continuing rise in costs of essential raw material including steel and precious metals, necessitates a transfer of at least some part of this increase to end customers, it added.

A formal announcement about the quantum of price increase is likely to be made within the forthcoming days or weeks, the company said.

Tata Motors sells models like Tiago, Nexon and Harrier in the domestic market.

On Sunday, Honda Cars announced plans to hike prices of its entire model range from August.

Steel prices have gone up considerably in the country over the last few months. In June, leading domestic steelmakers had hiked the prices of Hot Rolled Coil (HRC) and Cold Rolled Coil (CRC) by up to Rs 4,000 and Rs 4,900 per tonne, respectively.

HRC and CRC are flat steel products used in industries such as auto, appliances and construction. Hence, any rise in steel prices impacts the prices of vehicles, consumer goods, and construction costs.

Besides, the prices of precious metals like rhodium and palladium have almost doubled, impacting the production cost. Rhodium and palladium are used in the catalysers and their demand has gone up manifold due to the introduction of stricter emission norms across the world.

With input costs going up, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) in June announced that it would increase the prices of its entire product portfolio in the September quarter.

The homegrown auto major had in early May also hiked prices of its passenger vehicles by an average of 1.8 per cent, depending upon the model and variant in order to partially offset the rise in input costs.