Raw material prices including prices of precious metals spiralled northwards. To deal with the rising input costs, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) have had to pass on the price hike on more than one occasion to end consumers. For instance, Tata Motors announced an average price hike of 1.8 per cent on its passenger vehicle range across models and variants effective May 08’ 2021. It came as a follow-up to the April’ 2021, hike from market leader Maruti Suzuki. It was the second hike following the first round of hikes by major OEMs in January 2021. Raising the prices by 1.6 per cent on an average, the decision is believed to have factored the rise in input costs across precious metals like steel, copper, aluminium, rhodium and plastics besides the rise in crude oil prices. The Mahindra Group is known to have raised prices by 1.8 per cent to three per cent even as it looks to avert the hike through internal measures. Volvo Cars to avert the impact of the pandemic hiked prices by rupees one lakh to two lakh in nearly three years after it raised prices in 2018.
