Ford EcoSport prices hiked. AGAIN!

With the coming of January 2014, Ford has hiked the price of the EcoSport crossover. This is the second time the manufacturer has done so since the car was launched in June 2013, the first being in September.

We had earlier reported that customers could have to wait for a long time before their EcoSports are delivered. The company accepted 60,000 bookings for the car, but has managed to deliver only around half the number. Many of these bookings have been placed around the date the car was launched. Ford has not offered any price protection to its customers, which means that they will have to pay more to the extent of the price hike, which has, understandably, made them unhappy. The company has offered to refund full booking amount without deducting cancellation charges to customers who cancel their bookings for the EcoSport. Additionally, the company is offering EcoSport customers the option of buying their other products with benefits up to Rs. 10,000.

The table shows the prices of all the variants of the EcoSport. Some observations made:

• The range of the price hike across all variants since the launch, is from Rs. 59,000 to Rs. 75,000.
• The average price hike across all variants in September 2013 was Rs. 32,000.
• The average price hike across all variants between launch and January 2014 is Rs. 64,000.
• The Titanium (O) variant sees the highest hike – Rs. 74,000 for the EcoBoost and Rs. 75,000 for the diesel.
• The January 2014 price hike of the base variant, Trend, is the same as that of the top-end Titanium (O) variant.
• Some of the variants of the EcoSport are now priced at par with some variants of the new Honda City and very close to the much larger XUV500 W4.

One of the reasons Ford has been unable to supply enough EcoSports to match the demand is its limited monthly production capacity. Additionally, the company has been exporting the EcoSport to various countries across the world, which could have resulted in the domestic market being neglected. The inability to match the demand for the EcoSport and the steep price hikes could see customers going to other manufacturers.