Honda CR-V, Civic, Accord price to be hiked up to Rs 1.5 lakh

Honda Siel Cars plans to increase prices across its range of cars by Rs 10,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh from January 2009.
Honda has cited the depreciation of the rupee and increasing production costs as the reasons for the price hike.

Honda Accord India price hike coming up

Jnaneswar Sen, marketing vice-president for Honda Siel Cars, was quoted as saying, “Many of the parts are imported and the rupee’s depreciation has made them expensive. Thus, we will be revising car prices with effect from the first week of January,” Sen said.

The Honda Accord will be costlier by Rs 30,000 – Rs 50,000 and the Honda Civic by Rs 10,000 – Rs 20,000. The Honda CR-V will see the maximum price hike – Rs 1.5 lakh.

The Honda Accord’s price as of now is in the range of Rs 16.9-17.7 lakh, the Honda Civic’s between Rs 11 – 12.8 lakh, and Honda CR-V ’s between Rs 17.7-19.9 lakh.

The hike in prices are directly proportional to the imported components, from the US and Japan, found in the cars. The Honda CR-V has been affected the most since it is imported to India as a completely-built unit.

The Honda Accord has around 75% imported components and the Honda Civic has 22%.

The Honda City has escaped the price hike even though it has 26% imported content. The new Honda City has just been launched in India and the company has to stick to the announced prices, if they want to avoid a cancellation in the orders placed. The company has claimed that 5000 orders have been placed since the launch of the new Honda City.

Honda’s sales for the third quarter of 2008 fell by 28% over the same period in 2007, from 24,952 to 34,578.

Rising steel prices have forced other automobile companies like M&M, Eicher, and Hero Honda to consider a price hike. Honda has said that even though there has a been a softening in commodity prices and a fluctuation in steel prices, the prices of auto grade steel has remained stagnant.

On October 24, 2008, Maruti Suzuki India hiked the prices by Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 on select models.

The prices of Maruti 800 were hiked by Rs 2,000, the Maruti Alto by Rs 2,500, the Zen Estilo and WagonR by Rs 3,000, the Maruti Omni by Rs 2,200, the Maruti Suzuki SX4 by Rs 6,000, and the Gypsy by Rs 5,500.

While prices of the Maruti Suzuki DZire were not hiked, some variants of the Maruti Suzuki Swift are now deared by Rs 4,500.

Recently, Honda Siel had cut the prices of its Honda Civic Hybrid by Rs 8 lakh, from Rs 21.5 lakh to Rs 13.6 lakh.