Major automobile companies on Wednesday cut prices two days after Finance Minister P Chidambaram reduced the excise duty on vehicles. The carmakers hope this will give them a much-needed sales boost.

Across the board Maruti Suzuki has slashed prices by ₹8,502 to ₹30,984, and Hyundai Motor India by ₹10,000 to ₹1.35 lakh across all models, said statements by the companies.

Maruti also cut the price of its recently launched compact car Celerio by ₹13,615. It had announced a price of ₹ 3.90 lakh-4.96 lakh ex-showroom Delhi for the different variants.

These price cuts, effective from Wednesday, will be over and above the discounts the companies were already giving. For example, if Hyundai Eon has a base price of ₹2.97 lakh (ex-showroom) and there was a discount of ₹12,000 on this price, it will now get cheaper by ₹22,000 (with the ₹10,000 additional cut) ex-showroom.

“The Finance Minister has given some hope to the industry by reducing excise duties and we will also pass on the benefits to customers. These price cuts will be above all discounts we are already offering to customers on select models,” confirmed Rakesh Srivastava, Senior Vice-President (Sales and Marketing), Hyundai Motor India.

Volkswagen has reduced the prices of the Polo by ₹18,000-₹31,000, Vento by ₹14,500-27,000 and Jetta by ₹38,000-51,000.

Utility vehicle manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra has reduced prices by ₹13,000 to 49,000. The company will also reduce the price of its premium SUV, the Rexton, by up to ₹92,000.

Honda Cars India (HCIL) announced ₹14,650-₹44,741 reductions across all models.

“The reduction in duty will give the necessary boost to consumer demand and fuel growth in the auto industry,” said Jnaneswar Sen, Senior Vice-President (Marketing and Sales), HCIL.

Two-wheelers companies such as Hero MotoCorp and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India have also cut prices by up to ₹4,500 and ₹7,600, respectively.

Luxury cars, too Luxury car makers Audi India and Mercedes-Benz India had announced reduced prices on Monday itself. The Audi A4 sedan’s (base) price is now ₹29.85 lakh from ₹30.58 lakh earlier.

Mercedes-Benz India has cut the prices of its C-class, E-class and GL-class by ₹55,000 to ₹2 lakh.

The Finance Minister on Monday had announced reduction in excise duty from 12 per cent to 8 per cent on small cars, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles and from 30 per cent to 24 per cent on sport utility vehicles.

The excise duty on large and mid-segment cars was brought down to 24 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively.

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