Renault may pass on excise duty increase in SUV to customers

The FM today hiked excise duty on non-taxi SUVs to 30%

Sunil Rekhi, chief financial officer, Renault Nissan Automotive India Pvt Ltd today hinted that the company may pass on the excise duty increase for Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) to the customer. It may be noted, Renault is one of the major players in the SUV segment with its product Duster.

“He (the Finance Minister) has tinkered a bit on the SUV while making a change in that, trying to tap the growth there”.

With the measures announced in the Budget, the economy should bounce up and grow back to the way it is looking at. And that should automatically increase the automobile sales.

Asked whether Renault would look at passing on the excise duty hike to the customers, he said,“...well the government has to be paid the duties, you cant expect not to be. The law says you need to charge the duty. We need to pass on and give the duty to the government. It (SUV) is a growing sector, and as the investment and the infrastructure grows, this should help growth of volume and it should overall grow the car market and we feel that it will help the growth”.

The company first launched the Fluence and Koleos SUV, which was followed by the Pulse and Scala. However, it was the Duster which drove the big sales numbers. Boosted by its new models, Renault India sold a total of 35,052 units for the entire 2012 as compared to 1,401 units in 2011, over 25-fold increase.

At present the company sells five models, including compact car Pulse, SUV Duster and sedan Scala.