Bajaj Auto to hike motorcycle prices up to Rs 1500 from January 2017

Bajaj Auto on Wednesday said it will hike prices of its bikes by up to Rs 1,500 from January in order to partially offset the impact of rising input costs and upgrading of its entire portfolio to BS-IV emission levels.

“All two-wheeler manufacturers in the country are trying to be BS-IV compliant by April next year. We want to be the first ones to transition to the next emission levels,” Bajaj Auto Ltd President (Motorcycle) Eric Vas told.

Some of the models have already been made BS-IV compliant and the company expects to covert the rest of the product lines conforming to next level of emission norms by middle of next month, he added.

“As a consequence of shifting to BS-IV norms we will be hiking the prices of our bikes between Rs 700 and Rs 1,500, depending upon specific models, from next month,” Vas said.

Elaborating further on the reasons for taking a price hike, he said the input costs have also gone up due to the firming up of oil and commodity prices.

“The price hike is due to the transition to BS4 and also to accommodate increase in raw material costs as well. The hike shall not affect recently launched products like the Dominar 400,” Vas said.

Currently, India follows BS-III emission norms for two-wheelers. From April 2016, all new two-wheeler models started complying with BS-IV emission norms, and the existing models would comply with BS-IV emission norms from April 2017, on a pan-India basis.

Auto companies such as Hyundai Motor India, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Tata Motors, Mercedes Benz and Isuzu have said they would hike prices of their products from January to offset higher input costs and adverse impact of foreign exchange fluctuations.