Abstract: Driven by the strong demand for new energy vehicles, the price of nickel, manganese, cobalt, lithium and other metals in power battery raw materials has risen rapidly, especially battery-grade lithium carbonate, and the price has risen by more than 9 times in one year
▲ Lithium ore source network
| Zhao Cheng
Edit the | Shi Zhiliang
Recently, the price of lithium carbonate has continued to rise. According to the data released by Shanghai Iron and Steel Federation, on February 24, battery-grade lithium carbonate rose by 0.5 million yuan / ton, with an average price of 470,000 yuan / ton; lithium hydroxide rose by 0.5 million yuan - 10,000 yuan / ton, the highest reported at 427,500 yuan / ton; cobalt chloride, cobalt sulfate have risen to varying degrees.
The continuous rise in raw material prices has greatly reduced the product profits of some new energy automobile companies, and in order to cope with the continuous rise in costs, some car companies have begun to adjust their strategies and take measures to stop the sale of some of their models.
"We have now begun to stop accepting new car orders for black cat and white cat models, and the orders that have been received will continue to be produced in order." Dong Yudong, CEO of Great Wall Motor's Euler brand, said in an interview with Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche): "In the following time, we will actively seek raw materials, strive for the greatest resources, and strive to complete all the deliveries of existing orders in October this year, but we cannot give a specific time to resume orders." ”
At present, with the rapid development of the global new energy industry, lithium demand continues to grow significantly, but the supply of lithium concentrate is seriously insufficient. CITIC Securities Research Report pointed out that the Australian lithium mine production disturbance continued, Q4 production fell month-on-month, lithium ore prices are expected to exceed $3,000 / ton in the first half of 2022.
The cost surge is beyond imagination
Some car companies sell a car to lose 10,000 yuan
For car companies, in the environment of lack of core and less electricity, although it is a helpless move to stop taking orders, it also reflects the survival pressure faced by car companies after the cost has risen sharply.
"We have done the cost sharing to the extreme, but the most critical reason for stopping orders is the loss, the price of raw materials continues to rise, coupled with the new energy vehicle subsidy policy fell by 30%, which makes the black cat and white cat two models in a difficult situation." Now every car sold loses 10,000 yuan. Dong Yudong told Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche): "Counting the state subsidies for new energy vehicles, coupled with the current upward trend in raw material prices, by 2023, Euler black cats and white cats will lose nearly 17,000 yuan per car sold." ”
▲ Image source IC
Rising battery prices have added uncertainty to the cost of electric vehicles.
According to market research firm IHS Markit, in the late 2021, the price of lithium-ion batteries rose by about 10% to 20%, while the increase in raw material lithium salts reached about 400%. According to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), by the end of 2021, the average price of lithium-ion battery packs worldwide is $132/kWh (about 840 yuan).
In ternary material batteries, the cost of cathode materials containing lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metal elements accounts for nearly 50% of the cost of battery materials. The production cost of the three-electric system of Euler's black cat and white cat models accounts for 55%-60% of the cost of the vehicle, an increase of about 20% over the previous cost.
At present, many models on the market have adopted price increases to cope with rising costs and subsidies.
Caijing Automobile (ID: caijingqiche) learned that recently, Tesla has carried out several rounds of price increases, and the official website of the Model Y standard endurance version is priced at 301840 yuan, which is more than 20,000 yuan more than 20,000 yuan when it was just listed. The prices of other models have also been raised to varying degrees, and the cost of buying a car for consumers has become even higher, coupled with the 30% decline in the state subsidy for energy vehicles in the New Year in 2022.
The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen more than 9 times a year
The upward trend will continue
The hot sales of new energy vehicles have led to a sharp increase in the price of raw materials for power batteries.
As the world's largest new energy vehicle market, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 3.521 million units, an increase of nearly 1.6 times year-on-year, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years.
Driven by the strong demand for new energy vehicles, the price of valuable metals such as nickel, manganese, cobalt and lithium, raw materials for power batteries, has risen rapidly, especially battery-grade lithium carbonate. Its price at the beginning of 2021 was only 50,000 yuan / ton, and by December 2021, it has risen to 270,000 yuan / ton. According to the data released by Shanghai Steel Federation, the latest quotation of battery-grade lithium carbonate rose more than 9 times to more than 420,000 yuan / ton, and this is less than two months from the breakthrough of 300,000 yuan / ton on New Year's Day in 2022. In addition, the prices of battery-grade cobalt and nickel sulfate have also risen to varying degrees.
According to data released by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a benchmark mineral intelligence agency, from January 2020 to January 2022, the prices of battery-grade cobalt, nickel sulfate and nickel sulfate rose by 119% and 55%, respectively.
In addition, the relevant person in charge of Huayou Cobalt New Material Industry Group publicly stated that although the largest downstream application field of nickel is still stainless steel, the largest part of the increase is mainly from the field of lithium batteries. Driven by the demand for new energy vehicles, the proportion of nickel in the field of lithium batteries has continued to increase, which is about 3.5% in 2015, 16.1% in 2021, and is expected to rise to about 21.5% in 2022
Some analysts pointed out that as the necessary upstream raw materials for electric vehicles, there is no better second resource that can completely replace lithium. In addition, with the rapid growth of energy storage demand and the development of industries such as 3C, the progress of the development of lithium resources in the world's major planning in the next two years is difficult to match the speed and magnitude of demand growth, and in view of the complexity of resource projects, the actual development progress is uncertain. Driven by demand, it is expected that by 2023, lithium resources will continue to be in a state of short supply and high prices.
▲ Image source network
Minmetals Securities expects that the global lithium resource production will increase from 540,000 tons to 1.17 million tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) from 2021 to 2025, of which the supply of lithium extraction from salt lakes will increase from 230,000 tons of LCE in 2021 to 530,000 tons of LCE in 2025, accounting for a slight increase from 42.8% to 45%.