Jul. 19 – India’s Tata Motors announced on Friday that they will be increasing the price of their popular Nano model by three percent to four percent due to a “very sharp increase in input costs.”
Automobile prices in India have been rising across the board this year due increases in factory taxes, new government-issued emission regulations, and higher prices for key commodities like rubber and steel.
“It is a very nominal increase given the rise in raw material costs,” a Tata spokesman told Agence France Presse.
With a starting price as low as Rs. 130,000 (US$2,778), the four-door, energy-efficient Nano was introduced by Tata in March 2009 as the world’s cheapest car in an effort to attract India’s emerging middle class.
The new price hike is effective immediately on all new car purchases, but Tata issued a statement saying that the new price won’t apply to the 100,000 customers who were allotted a car last year.
From March to June last year the company received 206,703 booking orders for new Nanos and utilized a lottery system to select the first 100,000 customers. Those orders should be completed and delivered by December of this year.
