Mahindra to increase prices of its passenger cars from July 1
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. has announced that it will increase prices of its passenger cars by up to Rs 36,000, July 1 onwards. This is being done to cover the costs of implementing AIS 145 safety norms that become mandatory from the aforementioned date.
The AIS 145 norms call for cars to mandatorily have a driver airbag, seat belt reminder for driver and co-driver, rear parking sensors and an overspeed alert for the driver. The Scorpio, Bolero, TUV300 and KUV100 NXT will see a substantial increase given that they didn't come equipped with these features, to begin with. The XUV500 and Marazzo will see milder hikes, given that much of these bits were standard to begin with.
The newest product in Mahindra's line-up, the XUV300 and the flagship Alturas G4, already come with these features, so we don't expect their prices to see much revision. The Thar, meanwhile is being discontinued given that it won't meet the upcoming crash test norms. The Thar 700 has been launched as a run-out special.
According to Rajan Wadhera, president of the automotive sector at Mahindra Ltd., "At Mahindra, safety has been at the core of our product development process and we welcome the regulatory requirements relating to safety upgrades. We value every road user's life and have been effectively contributing to the evolving safety ecosystem. However, the safety regulatory requirement has led to some cost increases. Consequently, we are taking a price hike across some of our passenger vehicles, effective July 1, 2019."
