Tata Motors said the auto industry is likely to hike prices of vehicles in April as it will not be able to absorb the extra cost in meeting Euro-IV fuel emission norms.
“There will be a price hike across the industry when the Euro-IV norms come in to effect,” Tata Motors Passenger Car Division President Rajiv Dube told reporters here.
“We cannot say now by how much the price will be hiked, but a hike is definite as companies cannot absorb the extra cost in meeting the new norms,” he said.
Automobile makers have already increased prices of their vehicles after the government announced a roll-back of excise duty in the Union Budget.
Meanwhile, the home-grown auto major would commercially launch its premium cross over model ‘Aria’ in the middle of this year, Dube said.
“Aria, which is a cross-over of a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) and a Sedan, will be launched in the middle of this year.”
It would be priced higher than the Safari, he said.
“We haven’t announced the price band of this product.
But as it is a premium and sophisticated product, it will be priced above the Safari,” he added.
The company has started receiving bookings for Jaguar XJ model, which will be launched by the end of the first quarter of the next fiscal, he said.
“By the end of Q1 FY 11, we will launch Jaguar XJ. We have started receiving bookings in India for that,” Dube said.
Tata Motors has a 17-18 per cent market share in the utility vehicle segment, which includes Tata Sumo and Grande.
It enjoys a 19 per cent market share in the medium SUV segment that includes the Safari, he said.
The company today officially launched Tata Motors Service Edge, a comprehensive customer service imitative.
A host of facilities are being offered to customers in 800 service centres spread across 500 cities, Dube said. These include round-the-clock road assistance, rapid repair and e-service appointments.
Apart from this, the company will provide spare parts with a year’s warranty, extended warranty on vehicles and Tata Motors Insurance, which offers near cashless repair facility across the company’s authorised workshops, he added.
In the coming fiscal, the company will add another 200 service stations to take their total number to 1,000, Tata Motors Passenger Car Customer Support Head Vikram Sinha said.
