Thursday, February 28, 2013
By Shilpa Chopra
Union Budget 2013: Big SUVs, imported cars go pricier, electric cars get sops
The Indian auto industry is reeling under crisis due to high interest rates, inflation and the current sentiment of a slowdown. Even the bigwigs such as Maruti, Hyundai and Tata have failed to perform decently in the recent past. Even cars such as Tata Nano and Maruti Alto 800 have not fetched numbers that their respective car makers have thought. In such a situation, the industry had lot of expectations from the Union Budget. In all the Budget promotes car maker to build cars in India and to build more frugal cars that consume less fuel or altogether new electric cars.
Get Mahindra Scorpio Price
Now, SUVs directly imported into India will cost more as import duty has been hiked from 27 percent to 30 percent. As the excise duty of over 4 meter SUVs go up by 3 percent, there will be a hike in price of SUVs such as Mahindra Scorpio and Tata Safari Storme. Meanwhile, the compact car segment has been exempted from any hike or sops. Thus two car makers Tata and Mahindra will be most impacted in this Budget. Meanwhile, the industry took a huge sigh of relief to listen that there is no additional tax on diesel cars which was expected to be there. Analysts believe that if that would have been there, the industry would have been ruined in the coming months.
Get Tata Safari Storme Price
Car imports will have 100 percent import duty. So expect Ferrari cars and all the CBU cars to be pricier soon. Thus the latest entry Jaguar XJ Ultimate will undergo a price hike soon. Meanwhile, the Budget is a boon for electric cars in India and the only feasible car that is in the offing is the Reva NXR aka Mahindra Reva E2O. By continuing the duty exemption on parts imported for electric cars, the government has given green signal to Mahindra to launch the car at a rock bottom price. Thus we can see that the government has encouraged direct import of cars and ha yet again encouraged car makers to produce their cars in India in order to generate employment and attract investment in the country.
