Tata Motors to hike car and SUV prices from May 1 in second increase this year

Tata Motors, which continues to witness robust demand in the Indian passenger vehicle market and is the strong No. 3 player after Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor India, has announced a price increase across its passenger vehicle range, its second in the year to date.

In a statement issued today, the company said that it “will marginally increase price of its passenger vehicles from May 1, 2023.  The weighted average increase will be 0.6%, depending on the variant and model.  Tata Motors has been absorbing a significant portion of the increased costs on account of regulatory changes and rise in overall input costs and is hence compelled to pass on some proportion through this hike.”

This will be Tata Motors’ second price hike in the first four months of FY2023, with the first implemented on February 1, 2023 across its IC engine model range with the average price hike being 1.2%.

It may be recollected that the company had increased PV prices four times in CY2022 with the cumulative price hike working out to 3.45% – 0.9% on January 18, 1.1% on April 23, 0.55% on July 9 and 0.9% on November 7 last year.

500,000-plus sales in CY2022 and FY2023

Tata Motors, which retails seven models – Altroz, Harrier, Nexon (and Nexon EV), Punch, Safari, Tiago (and Tiago TV), Tigor (and Tigor EV) – achieved its best-ever annual sales in CY2022 with 526,798 PVs including 8% EVs.

In FY2023, the company sold a total of 544,391 PVs, its highest ever in a fiscal, putting it close behind No. 2 player, Hyundai Motor India. These included 357,249 utility vehicles (up 58%), giving it a UV market share of 18%, up from 15% in FY2022 and 8% in FY2021. The Nexon, India’s best-selling UV, has sold an estimated 172,138 units, accounting for 48% of Tata’s overall sales and 8.59% of all-India UV sales. It is followed by the Punch compact SUV (133,819), Harrier (30,633) and Safari (20,659). 

Tata Motors has the first-mover advantage in the fast-growing electric vehicle market, where it has an over 80% market share with the Nexon EV, Tigor EV and Xpres-T (for fleet buyers) and the Tiago EV. As per the company, it has logged wholesales of 50,043 EVs in FY2023, which marks strong 154% YoY growth (FY2022: 19,668 EVs).

Tata Motors, which has an order book of 20,000 units for its Tiago EV, is also making strong gains from its XPres-T electric sedan sold exclusively to fleet customers. In FY2023, the company gathered close to 50,000 orders for the XPres-T. 

The company's EVs are now seeing the first round of proper competition: the Nexon EV with the Mahindra XUV400 and the Tiago EV with the upcoming MG Comet EV.