Car prices of Toyota, GM, Honda, Maruti & Audi set to go up on falling rupee

NEW DELHI: Car prices are set go up due to depreciation of rupee as higher input costs are forcing companies to look for an upward revision , despite the slowdown in the market. Companies like Toyota, General Motors, Honda, Maruti and Audi have said with falling rupee, they have to pay more for parts and components that are imported. "The rupee depreciation is adding to the cost and we will be going in for a revision from January next year," Toyota Kirloskar Deputy MD (sales & marketing) Sandeep Singh said. Toyota had last raised prices by 1%-1 .5% in October this year. "The hike could be of a similar range or even more." Toyota's vehicles like Innova and Fortuner have 50% imported parts and the falling rupee has made their costs higher. General Motors also spoke of a similar cost pressure and said it may have to go for a revision soon. "This is definitely putting a lot of pressure and is negatively impacting us. Obviously, we are looking at passing the extra cost to the market and now this may happen earlier than the previously-planned revision in January," General Motors India V-P P Balendran said. Apart from certain parts, GM India imports engines for models like Spark, U-VA , Aveo and Optra and costs of all these has been impacted. Luxury carmaker Audi said it may have to look at the prices to factor in rising costs. "With the continuous devaluation of the rupee vs the euro and the dollar, we cannot rule out the necessity of realigning our pricing," Audi India MD Michael Perschke said. Rupee has slipped further against dollar on Tuesday to touch 52.32. Maruti - that had raised prices of its diesel cars last week - also complained of the adverse impact from a weaker rupee, though adding that it had no plans to go for a price hike again. "The rupee depreciation is adversely impacting us and this is the worst movement of the currency against the US dollar . It has lost 15% in the last two months," Maruti Suzuki CFO Ajay Seth said. Maruti has both direct and indirect exposure to foreign currencies, while importing components and it imports Rs 8,000 crore worth of parts annually, Seth said. "At the same time, we also export cars and that is benefiting us at present. Considering both, we are impacted as a net importer. The situation is affecting our margins."