Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc. (HARI), the exclusive distributor of Hyundai vehicles in the Philippines has adjusted their pricing taking into account the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or TRAIN law. After holding back last month, these new prices are effective February 15 and with it, carries an upward movement in the suggested retail price.

Unlike other carmakers that increased their prices across the entire model range, Hyundai has opted to keep price-sensitive models as they were before. Base variants of the Accent and Elantra, as well as the entire Eon range have kept their prices steady post-TRAIN.

The rest of the line-up isn’t so lucky.

Diesel variants of the Accent are all up from P 12,000 to as much as P 50,000 due to the new tax. This equates to a price increase anywhere between 1.5 to 6 percent. The hardest hit variant is actually the TNVS-popular 1.6 CRDi GL hatchback which is now priced at P 878,000 from P 828,000. On to the Elantra, the 2.0-liter models have gone up 1.7 to 3 percent, with the 2.0 GL Limited getting slapped with the highest increase (P 32,000).

The Tucson, Hyundai’s compact SUV offering gets hit with an increase ranging from a very modest 0.72 percent to as much as 7.32 percent due to its tax bracket. As predicted, the variant with a December 2017 SRP in the P 1.4-2.0 million range gets hit the most. In this case, the 2.0 GLS CRDi 2WD has gone up P 117,000 to P 1,715,000 (from P 1,598,000).

It’s almost the same case with the Hyundai Santa Fe which goes up 5.26 percent to P 1,840,000 from P 1,748,000 last December. The larger Grand Santa Fe model isn’t as badly hit, going up a mere 0.39 percent (P 2,543,000) compared to its price two months ago.

Moving on to Hyundai’s bread-and-butter Starex model, it’s up across the entire range. However, the fleet-friendly 2.5 GL and 2.5 GL Super Express are up just 0.87 to 1.90 percent respectively. It’s actually the leisure models, those equipped with a CRDi engine and an automatic transmission that have gone up—by as much as 17.63 percent this month.

For HARI’s niche models, the Veloster Turbo keeps its price this month due to remaining 2017 stocks while the Sonata has bid adieu.

Compared to our predictions last December, we were off by 1.96 percent at the most (average variance is 1.25 percent). We actually predicted higher prices for the Eon, Accent, and Tucson but it seems HARI has found a way to pass on a bit more savings to its buyers starting this month. We were off just 0.79 percent with the Accent and 0.98 percent with the Tucson.