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Petrol price hiked by Rs 7.50 per litre: petrol car sales to go down, diesel cars to steal the show

Its time to set out on a journey on your new Chevrolet Spark or Maruti Alto K10. Wait, it is not an excursion but a queue for petrol at the petrol station as the price of petrol has been hiked by Rs 7.50 per litre. Since the new prices will be effective midnight, a large number of people have rushed to the petrol stations to get their car’s tank full.

The falling has its pangs – both on the nation and the pocket of the common man. This time it is in the form of the hike in petrol price by up to Rs 7.50 per litre. This translates into a ten percent hike which is sufficient to disrupt the budget of any middle class family.

Meanwhile, there has been greater resentment among the public as well as the opposition parties against the petrol price hike and it is expected that the government will be bringing down the hike from Rs 7.50 per litre to around Rs 3-4 per litre tomorrow. But in case the price rise remains intact, it will be the highest increase ever and is sure to have a deepest impact on car sales in India.

Now with the rise in petrol prices there will be a big question mark on petrol driven cars prominent among them will be Maruti and Honda cars. Maruti that has almost cherished the title of being the largest car seller may have to think vigorously to replace the petrol engine in its cars by a diesel motor. But it is now almost sure that Honda cars that has purely petrol driven models only will see a sharp decline in sales as the per kilometer running cost on petrol will also increase. Resultantly more and more people will shift towards diesel cars and entry level diesel hatchbacks such as Tata Indica eV2, Tata Indica Vista, Chevrolet Beat Diesel and Ford Figo besides others will steal the show and become some of the best selling cars rather than Maruti Alto and Hyundai Eon sales could see a downfall. However amidst this, Tata Nano sales is expected to remain steady as even on petrol the small car returns a mileage of over 25 kmpl.

Latest petrol prices are: Delhi: Rs 73.15, Mumbai: Rs 78.16, Kolkata: Rs 77.53, Chennai: Rs 77.05.