Car prices have increased alot recently. 8lakh car is now worth 13lakh. Ridiculous. PTI government need to make cars more affordable to the comman people.
I see this as an opportunity.
It's a big challenge to make a $5000 car no matter what technology you use. Just steel alone, and most basic metalworking will take $1200+ on a smallest car around, and fully assembled body + paint will take $2000+
Thus you are left with $3000 for every other part, labour, and what you are left with to buy dinner.
I believe the price raise is just them accommodating the parts price going up.
I would not be wondering much why you can only get cars like Suzukis for that: it's hard to even think of how to come with a cheaper car than their low-end offerings.
Toyota was like that in China though nineties, but when people's incomes started to go up, the time for payback came for them. Toyota still have a reputation for "atrociously economic" designs.
So it comes to the fact that you basically cannot reduce the price of IC engine powered car in any imaginable way, because there is nothing left to throw out.
EVs are look much more favourable here as the most basic EVs can be made with just 2 parts in the powertrain: a wheel, and a motor.
The most basic EV powertrain + sensibly sized battery can be cheaper that cheapest IC one. It means you get at least $1000 something advantage over IC powered car, which you can get to fancy it up quite a bit over something as ugly as Suzuki Mekran.