This time, the "Wait Party" lost.
In the past two years, in the environment of the gradual rise of the new energy vehicle consumption boom, many consumers have held a wait-and-see attitude of "buying early and tasting early, but late buying discounts" for the purchase of new energy vehicles due to the immaturity of new car technology and after-sales service, coupled with the instability of the price system of new energy vehicles, especially Tesla's repeated price reduction operations after domestic production in the past two years, which has made consumers firm in the belief of "waiting".
However, since entering 2022, looking at the entire new energy vehicle market, not only Tesla has ushered in price increases, including new forces such as Xiaopeng, Nezha, and Zero Run, but also traditional car companies such as SAIC Roewe and GAC Eian electric vehicle brands, as well as bydy, the big brother of independent new energy, have announced price increases one after another.
However, it is worth noting that under such a large-scale price increase, the growth trend of the new energy vehicle market seems to be still rock solid, and many industry views also express optimistic views on the new energy vehicle market in 2022.
The price rises but the enthusiasm for consumption does not decrease, is the new energy vehicle user rich and willful? Or is it just a flash in the pan at the beginning of the year? Under the pressure of policy decline and manufacturer costs, can the new energy vehicle market continue to grow high in 2022?
01 A loud voice
On February 12, SAIC Roewe announced that it will raise the official guidance price of many of its new energy models from March 1, 2022, but the specific price increase has not yet been announced.
Prior to this, SAIC's high-end pure electric brand Feifan Automobile also said on February 1 that it would adjust the price of some models of its MARVEL R and ER6 car series. Among them, the adjusted price of MARVEL R is 219,800-26.18 million yuan, except for the price of entry-level models that have not been adjusted, the rear-drive PRO version and the four-wheel drive PRO version have increased by 2,000 yuan. The price of the ER6 after adjustment is 156,800-201,800 yuan, and the price of all models has increased by 1,000 yuan.
On February 7, the entire series of mini-electric vehicles Wuling Nano EV, which has just been on the market for two months, also rose by 3,000 yuan, and the adjusted price range was 52,800-6.28 million yuan.
On January 21, BYD Automobile announced that it will adjust the official guidance price of its Dynasty Network and Ocean Network related new energy models on February 1, mainly involving Qin PLUS DM-i/EV, Song PLUS DM-i/EV, Song Pro DM-i, YuanPro, Han EV/DM, Tang DM-i, 2021 Tang DM and Dolphin, with an increase of 1000-7000 yuan. Judging from the latest price of the current official APP, Qin PLUS DMi/EV, Song PLUS DMi, Tang DMi/DM, and Dolphin all rose by 3,000 yuan; Song EV and Han EV/DM all rose by 5,000 yuan; and the yuan series rose by 7,000 yuan.
It is worth noting that this is already the second round of price increases this year. The first round of price increases has quietly begun since Last December.
The earliest is Weilai, which released the 2022 car purchase subsidy plan in early December, claiming to pay the deposit before December 31, 2021 (inclusive), and successfully picked up the car before March 31, 2022, can still enjoy subsidies in accordance with the 2021 national subsidy standard. After that, the amount of subsidies will drop by 4860 to 5400.
Subsequently, on December 28, Zero Run raised the price of the 2022 Zero Run T03 by 8,000 yuan, and on December 31, Tesla announced that the rear-wheel drive versions of the Model 3 and Model Y were priced by 10,000 yuan and 21,000 yuan, respectively.
In the most months after entering 2022, Nezha Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, and GAC Aean have successively announced price increases.
In addition, FAW / SAIC Volkswagen ID series models and great wall of the Euler brand has also begun to brew price increases, according to dealer news, all three plan to rise by 5400 yuan, but unlike Tesla Xiaopeng and other manufacturers directly adjust the price, Volkswagen and Euler have launched similar "price insurance" measures, claiming that before February 28, orders to buy a car, can still enjoy the same comprehensive subsidy after the price as in 2021, the difference is borne by the manufacturer. (However, Euler's insuring strategy is only for the Good Cat model, while Volkswagen applies to the ID series of 5 models.) ）
In fact, this operation of the two is similar to the news of the price increase of SAIC Roewe, BYD and Weilai, and is intended to promote consumers to achieve a wave of order climax at the official end of subsidies.
In terms of specific increases, the current increase is as low as 1,000 yuan and as high as 21,000 yuan, based on the price of different models, the overall increase is between 0.6% and 10%.
At present, there are ideal, BAIC, Dongfeng, Changan, Geely and other manufacturers in the mainstream car companies have not yet released the price increase dynamics, which may be because the subsidy amount is still within the range of profits, or the brand of new energy vehicles themselves have just improved sales, but it is not a big hit, worried that the announcement of price increases at this time will have a greater impact on the sales of new energy vehicles, so choose to be cautious and wait and see.
02 Where is the pressure on price increases?
For this round of price increases, I believe that most consumers have already had expectations. Because with the gradual maturity of the new energy vehicle market, the subsidy decline until it is terminated is an irreversible trend.
Entering 2022, the latest "Notice on the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in 2022" clearly states that the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 will basically decline by 30% in 2021.
According to this standard, the pure electric vehicle model with a pure electric mileage of 300-400 (including 300) kilometers is subsidized by 0.91 million yuan, which is 0.39 million yuan less than in 2021, and the subsidy for pure electric vehicle models greater than or equal to 400 kilometers is 12,600 yuan, which is 0.54 million yuan less than in 2021; in addition, the subsidy for plug-in hybrid models is 0.48 million yuan, a decrease of 0.2 million yuan from the previous one.
The amount of subsidies varies between different endurance models, which also explains why the price increases of various car companies are different. However, the subsidy decline is actually only a fuse, and the key factor affecting the increase of manufacturers has to mention the cost fluctuations and supply and demand problems of core components such as power batteries and chips.
In 2021, the cost of automotive power batteries will be greatly affected by the price fluctuations of metal raw materials upstream in the supply chain, including key metal raw materials such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, and lithium and their compounds, with a huge increase.
According to the statistics of the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, compared with the beginning of last year, the average price of cathode materials for mainstream ternary lithium batteries rose by 108.9% at the end of January this year, and the average price of lithium iron phosphate battery cathode materials rose by 182.5%. The early price of lithium was only 30,000 yuan / ton, and has now risen to 330,000 to 340,000 yuan / ton, an increase of 10 times. In 2021, the spot price of lithium metal will increase by as much as 175%, while the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate will increase by more than 418%.
According to the latest data from Shanghai Iron and Steel Federation on February 17, electrolytic cobalt rose by 1500 yuan / ton; battery-grade lithium carbonate rose by 5,000 yuan / ton, with an average price of 435,000 yuan / ton; lithium hydroxide rose by 8500-10,000 yuan / ton. Prices are rising basically every day.
In addition, the chip shortage throughout 2021 is also a key pressure on the production costs of new energy vehicle companies. In 2021, the average global chip supply lead time was extended from 13 weeks in November 2020 to 22.3 weeks in November 2021.
Under such a difficult market, in the second half of last year, there was even a chip "black market", and some people speculated the ESP chip that cost more than ten yuan to thousands of yuan, and the price doubled hundreds of times!
Therefore, compared with the difference in subsidy decline, the rising supply chain costs in the past year are the source of pressure on manufacturers to increase prices. Moreover, different models with different endurance have different demands on batteries, and products with a higher degree of intelligence have higher demand for chips, so it is reasonable that Tesla has increased significantly among many manufacturers.
03 Buying or not buying is not a problem
However, from the feedback of the market, in the face of this round of price increases that have swept in an all-round way, consumers' enthusiasm for purchasing new energy vehicles has not faded, but there is a trend of rising against the trend.
In January, the national passenger car retail sales fell by 4.4% year-on-year, and the retail sales of new energy passenger cars reached 347,000 units in January, up 132.0% year-on-year and 27.0% month-on-month, which is basically the same as the 25% decline in January 2021.
The national retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in January was 16.6%, an increase of 10 percentage points from the penetration rate of 6.8% in January 2021. Among them, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the independent brand market is 31.4% and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in luxury brands is 10.2%, while the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainstream joint venture brands is only 2.5%.
In terms of specific car companies, data from the Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that Tesla's wholesale sales reached 59,845 units in January, of which domestic sales were 19,345 units, an increase of 25% year-on-year; BYD's wholesale sales of new energy passenger cars reached 93,101 units, and retail sales reached 92,926 units, a year-on-year surge of 367.6%. In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 12,922 units in January, an increase of 115% year-on-year, and Nezha Automobile sold more than 10,000 units for the third consecutive month, reaching 11,009 units, an increase of 402% year-on-year, continuing to surpass Weilai.
It can be seen that for those brands that are themselves hot, the slight fluctuation in price has not affected sales. In particular, manufacturers like BYD, which cleverly used price increases to create momentum in advance, achieved a significant increase in January, and it is reported that there are still more than 200,000 undelivered orders.
However, for some brands with flat sales and low user recognition, under the tide of price increases, the deserted situation has shown an aggravated trend.
For example, Volkswagen's ID series, although the wind in advance intends to encourage consumers to hurry up and place orders, but the total sales of the five models in January were only a pitiful 9504, the highest sales ID.4X sold 3295 vehicles, and the least ID.6X/CROZZ models only had more than 800 vehicles, a month-on-month decline of 74.6%.
A similar situation is SAIC's Feifan Automobile. In December, 2718 units were delivered for both models, and by January it fell directly to 2022 units, down 25.6% month-on-month. For Feifan Automobile in sales has not kept up with the operation of daring to increase prices, the industry and consumers are not very optimistic. Some netizens ridiculed "Does anyone pay attention to this car" and "up to 108,000, no worries about sales."
The immediate fact is that the hot selling is still hot, the price that is not selling well is even more un bought, consumers will not show a clear tendency between the slight differences in the increase between brands, and product strength and brand recognition are still the key criteria for consumers to choose new energy vehicles.
In addition, from the stable sales volume of the market performance in January, it can also be seen that this wave of price increases is still within the acceptable range of most consumers.
04 The more it rises, the more it buys, which one is the truth?
For this round of price increases, the Association believes that the market price of new energy vehicles is not expected to rise significantly, and car companies should have the ability to resolve the pressure and continue to maintain the rapid growth of new energy vehicles in 2022.
Among them, the cost pressure of the battery can be resolved in many ways. Car companies can improve cost pressure and improve communication efficiency by improving battery performance, diversifying supplier selection, and incorporating supplier development into internal transactions.
In addition, the original use of ternary lithium products, the subsequent shift to the use of more cost-effective lithium iron phosphate batteries can also reduce battery costs to a certain extent, especially BYD's blade batteries, while taking into account the cost at the same time has not lost the energy density of ternary lithium batteries per unit volume, so in this context, it is possible to boost the external supply business of Fordi batteries.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, also pointed out that the rise in raw material prices that began to deteriorate in the second half of 2021 is the impact of short-term resource mismatch, and will be improved in the second half of this year, because the overall mining cost is low, the profits are extremely lucrative, and the price increase of raw materials is not sustainable. With the upgrading of technology and the huge investment of capital, the shortage of lithium batteries in the world will be gradually resolved.
In addition, because HEV and PHEV models are less affected by subsidy decline and the battery configuration is small, their cost performance is beginning to stand out compared to the same level of pure electric vehicles, and it is possible to usher in a substantial growth trend next.
Regarding the shortage of chips, Cui Dongshu believes that the main reason is the impact of insufficient capacity supply and market speculation in the short term, with the gradual establishment of intermediate inventory and the gradual easing of speculation, the shortage of new energy vehicle chips will also be alleviated to a certain extent. Chip supply has also shown a gradual improvement momentum in January.
At the beginning of the year, the "December 2021 Market Insight and Price Monthly Report" (hereinafter referred to as the report) released by the China Automobile Dealers Association also pointed out that with the gradual stabilization of the overseas epidemic situation, the chip shortage has a easing trend, production has gradually recovered, and wholesale volume has rebounded significantly. Among them, the independent brand industry chain has a strong ability to cope with chip shortages, effectively resolving the pressure of chip shortages.
In addition to the factors of manufacturers, some people are also worried that the premium increase brought about by the exclusive car insurance for new energy vehicles launched at the end of December will hit consumers' enthusiasm for car purchases. However, as the big event Jun's previous article (see premiums rose by 80% overnight), insurance companies also came to cut Tesla "leeks"? As said, the new energy exclusive car insurance does not bring about a general increase in premiums but a general drop in premiums, and with the accumulation of practice, the loss rate of individual new energy vehicles that have risen sharply before will gradually return to a reasonable level. Therefore, the premium factor will not have a significant impact on sales.
From the perspective of overall consumption expectations, automobile consumption is still rigid demand. In addition, in 2023, the subsidy for new energy vehicles is about to end, and consumers will no longer enjoy subsidies, so based on this consideration, as the limit in the second half of this year approaches, consumers' desire to buy new energy vehicles will become more and more urgent, and the sales of new energy vehicles are likely to appear "more and more buy".
From the perspective of various factors, maintaining rapid growth is still the main theme of the new energy vehicle market in 2022. Cui Dongshu said that the original expected sales of new energy passenger cars in 2022 was 4.8 million units, and should now be adjusted to more than 5.5 million units, and the penetration rate of new energy passenger cars has reached about 25%.