The chip doubles the price increase! In the automobile market, there is a situation of "one core is difficult to find".
According to CCTV Finance, the price of automotive chips has risen across the board. Take a body electronic stability system core chip produced by STMicroelectronics as an example, which was originally priced at only about 20 yuan in the previous year, and has now been speculated to 2800 yuan, not including tax.
On the one hand, because chip factories in Southeast Asia and other places are still affected by the epidemic, production capacity has fallen sharply, resulting in a shortage of automotive chips. On the other hand, chip dealers hoarding goods is also the reason for the soaring price of chips.
Chip price increases are not the first time they have occurred. Last year, the price of chips sold by auto chip manufacturers, authorized agents and so on rose by 10%-15%, and individual chips rose by 50%. Chip dealerships have also attracted great attention from regulatory authorities and fined companies that inflate chip prices.
Because "a core is difficult to find", car companies rush to order chips, in order to buy more chips, to the door of chip suppliers squatting to "grab the core". There are also problems such as terminal vehicle price increases, vehicle allocation reductions, delivery delays, and suspension of orders.
Under the new round of chip prices soaring, Euler's black cat and white cat have stopped taking orders, and Euler brand CEO Dong Yudong pointed out in a statement: "The loss of black cats is more than 10,000 yuan. However, Euler also did not know when to resume receiving orders, and did not rule out the possibility of gradually stopping the production of black cat and white cat models after Euler delivered the existing order models.
When will the lack of cores end? There seems to be no precocious answer. Industry analysts believe that the recent escalation of conflicts between Russia and Ukraine may affect the supply of raw materials for the production of chips, further exacerbating the shortage of automotive chips.
Neon and palladium are indispensable raw materials for chip production, according to market research firm TrendForce data, Ukraine supplies nearly 70% of the world's high-purity neon gas, Russia's palladium production accounts for about 40% of the world's total.
Another data points out that as of February 23 this year, the global price of palladium has jumped to more than $2400 per ounce, nearly doubling from December 2021.
Obviously, if the supply of Russia and Ukraine is blocked, it directly affects the automotive industry that needs a large number of power management chips and power semiconductors, and raw materials face price increases, thereby pushing up global chip prices.
What's more, crude oil prices could also be pushed to all-time highs. On February 24, international oil prices broke through $100 a barrel for the first time in more than seven years, setting a new high since September 2014.
JPMorgan noted that if oil prices rise to $150 a barrel, the annualized growth rate of global GROSS domestic product will fall to 0.9% in the first half of this year, and inflation will more than double to 7.2%.
The next round of oil price adjustment time is 24:00 on March 3, 2022, if the international oil price still maintains a high trend, domestic oil prices or usher in a rise again.
There is no doubt that the escalation of the conflict means that it will have more or less impact on the automotive industry, and the chain reaction caused by the soaring crude oil prices, neon gas and the limited supply of palladium metal is bound to bring about different degrees of changes to the automobile manufacturing industry. Chip as the soul of the car, has irreplaceability, for car chip manufacturers, in the tide of how to grasp their own direction, will be a major test they face.