Overnight out-of-market LME nickel futures soared more than 88% at one point! The price of many small metal products continues to rise, and the price of lithium carbonate has directly stood on the price line of 500,000 yuan / ton after several rounds of jumping, in the face of soaring raw materials, the market pattern of new energy vehicles may have the opportunity to change.
Soaring raw material prices
Commodity financial markets are experiencing a "historic scene.". After last night's 74% surge, Today Lun Nickel continues to go crazy, soaring 110% intraday, creating a record sky-high price of 101365 US dollars / ton.
The short market continued to be staged, and the LME nickel price rose to 100% during the day, breaking through the 60,000, 70,000, 80,000, 90,000, and 100,000 US dollars mark, rising 248% in two trading days, setting a new record high.
Nickel is only the basic metal of the new energy vehicle industry chain question, if the price continues to maintain a high level, it will inevitably affect the cost of new energy vehicle power batteries, of course, this round of nickel short-term surge, there is also news that the international futures market sniper bears caused short-term fluctuations, but for nickel, aluminum prices that may be short-term behavior, accounting for nearly 40% of the cost of new energy vehicles, the power battery has continued to increase in price for a long time.
In the past year, upstream of power batteries, the price of metal raw materials has risen dramatically. Among them, the main raw material of new energy vehicle power batteries, battery-grade lithium carbonate, its price has increased by 10 times in more than a year.
According to data from Shanghai Steel Federation, on March 7, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate reached 502,500 yuan / ton. The average spot price of lithium hydroxide is 459,500 yuan / ton. At the beginning of this year, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was only 300,000 yuan / ton, and at the beginning of last year, it was only 50,000 yuan / ton.
Battery-grade lithium carbonate prices continue to consolidate at a high level, so that new energy vehicles in the midstream battery manufacturers feel pressure, the market once rumored that battery manufacturers cut production, abandon buying rumors, the market has appeared resistance, and 500,000 yuan / ton lithium carbonate price, squeezed the confidence of three or four echelon battery factories to take goods, from the perspective of cost accounting, has reached the limit of the enterprise, some iron lithium manufacturers have begun to reduce the goods, reduce output.
Downstream car companies are suffering from high-priced raw materials. Recently, the news of the suspension of the two models of The Great Wall Motor's Euler Black Cat and White Cat has brushed the screen. "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 cut by 30%, which makes the black cat and white cat two models in a difficult situation." Dong Yudong, CEO of the Great Wall Euler brand, said, "Now for every car sold, it loses 10,000 yuan. ”
In fact, as early as last November, BYD announced a 20% increase in the price of battery products, followed by Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Penghui Energy, and catheter era also had to raise some battery prices.
According to the Xinzhu lithium battery database, considering the difference in the settlement cycle, and combined with the material BOM, energy consumption, amortization depreciation and labor and other multi-party cost calculations, driven by the soaring price of lithium carbonate, the current production cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries has exceeded 700 yuan / kwh, an increase of more than 70% year-on-year; the cost of low and medium nickel ternary cells has also increased significantly, superimposed nickel and cobalt metal market fluctuations, cost increases of 61.7%. Although the rise of lithium hydroxide is weaker than that of lithium carbonate, the price linkage also drives the cost of high nickel batteries to about 900 yuan / kwh.
In the face of rising cost pressures, car companies began to re-focus on the field of hybrid vehicles.
Plug-in hybrids show signs of a strong rise
Conceptually, hybrid vehicles cover vehicles that provide some or all of the power by adding additional power sources (e.g., batteries, supercapacitors) and drives (e.g., electric motors). Compared with conventional fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles have the advantages of high energy efficiency and low emission performance due to the high efficiency of the engine and the effective recovery of braking energy.
Compared with pure electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles reduce the requirements for battery energy density and capacity, reduce the quality of the battery part, which is conducive to improving the performance of the vehicle's power and mileage, and does not need to increase special charging facilities, which is easy to promote.
According to the relevant domestic policies, hybrid models in the field of new energy vehicles usually refer to plug-in hybrid vehicles, and the requirements that related products must meet include: external charging; pure electric mileage of not less than 50km; electric drive and fuel drive system, and can be converted into drives.
Among them, because the battery capacity of plug-in hybrid vehicles is larger than that of ordinary hybrid vehicles, the battery can be charged using an external power supply, and it is also possible to use pure electric mode to situation for a longer distance; this is also the biggest feature of plug-in hybrid vehicles that are different from other hybrid vehicles.
According to the agency's calculations, by 2020, the difference in power system cost between plug-in hybrid vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles is about 27,000 yuan, taking into account the difference in the national subsidy and purchase tax policy for plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2021, the difference between the terminal price of plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel vehicles is about 10,000 yuan. In other words, even without considering the advantages of the license plate policy, the technology of hybrid vehicles has basically reached a level that can directly compete with traditional fuel vehicles.
At a time when the cost of pure electric vehicles remains high, the spring of hybrid vehicle development has arrived.
Hybrid vehicles ushered in a golden period of development
In addition to the unexpected soaring cost of pure electric vehicles, the reason why hybrid vehicles can usher in a golden period of development is mainly due to the following three aspects -
Hybrid vehicles help achieve low-carbon development of vehicles: carbon neutrality has a clear goal, and hybrid technology helps the development of low-carbon vehicles. According to the calculation results of the bicycle carbon emissions of different types of passenger cars in 2019 by China Automobile Data, the carbon emissions of bicycles in conventional hybrid passenger cars, plug-in hybrid passenger cars and pure electric passenger cars were 167.2 gCO2e/km, 180.9 gCO2e/km and 153.7 gCO2e/km, respectively, which were significantly lower than the 209.0 gCO2e/km of gasoline vehicles and 281.9 gCO2e/km of diesel vehicles.
It can be seen that new energy vehicles have significant carbon emission reduction potential. Therefore, the development of new energy vehicles is an important means to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, and hybrid vehicles, as an important intermediate product for the transition of vehicles from fuel vehicles to pure electric vehicles, are an important solution to undertake the low-carbon development of automobiles in the next certain period of time.
Hybrid vehicles help achieve automotive energy-saving targets: The "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" led by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China puts forward the overall goal of mainland automotive technology, by 2025, 2030 and 2035, domestic new energy vehicles will reach 20%, 40% and 50% of total sales, and energy-saving vehicles (including hybrid technology solutions such as 48V and HEV) will reach 50%, 75% and 100% of traditional energy passenger cars respectively. The fuel consumption of new passenger cars reached 4.6L/100km, 3.2L/100km and 2.0L/100km, respectively.
According to this calculation, in the next 15 years, hybrid vehicles or will gradually achieve the upgrading of traditional fuel vehicles. The rapid realization of the development and application of hybrid technology and the rapid improvement of the product strength of hybrid vehicles will be one of the keys for car companies to achieve electrification transformation in the future.
Hybrid vehicle moped companies complete the double integration target: Since the implementation of the double integral management measures in 2017, with the gradual increase in assessment requirements, the overall double integral pressure of domestic passenger cars has continued to increase, and the overall double integral of domestic passenger cars in 2020 is negative, and the overall double integral of domestic passenger cars has not reached the standard for the first time. At the 2020 China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said that due to the failure of the double points to meet the standard, Changan's bicycle profit was reduced by 4,000 yuan. It can be seen that on the vehicle supply side, in order to reduce the impact of negative integration under the double integration policy, transmission vehicle companies will continue to increase the proportion of new energy vehicles and energy-saving vehicles.
In terms of specific car company data, according to BYD's January 2022 production and sales report, BYD's production of new energy vehicles in January was 91,736 units, an increase of 309.66% year-on-year; sales were 93,168 units, an increase of 361.73% over the same period last year. Among them, the sales of new energy passenger vehicles totaled 92,926 units, an increase of 367.65% year-on-year, an increase of 0.11% month-on-month. In terms of specific models, BYD's sales of pure electric vehicles in January increased by 220.7% year-on-year to 46,386 units, recording a 4% month-on-month decline;
In January, plug-in hybrid sales surged 760.58% y/y to 46,540 units, up 4.57% month-on-month. It is reported that in terms of hybrid models, Tang's sales continued to maintain a high level of about 9,000 vehicles, and Qin PLUS and Song PLUS contributed the main increment.
New growth opportunities for independent brands
Hybrid vehicles have entered the golden growth cycle, in addition to changes in the market pattern, their own technology drive has also played a very critical role.
Hybrid technology adjusts the engine to the most efficient working range by controlling the output of the motor, thereby achieving the purpose of improving thermal efficiency and reducing fuel consumption. Domestic independent brands have an early layout in the field of hybridization, and SAIC, Geely, Changan, BYD and so on have successively launched related models.
In 2021, BYD and Great Wall launched a new generation of hybrid technology DM-i and Lemon DHT respectively, both of which adopt a two-motor hybrid configuration and a highly integrated hybrid assembly scheme, which can take into account both HEV and PHEV types; Geely launched a new generation of hybrid technology GHS2.0 in the second half of 2021 and released related models. It can be seen that the new generation of hybrid technology launched by the independent brand is equipped with a high-performance hybrid special engine, with high system integration, simple structure, low cost, and the comprehensive performance performance has basically reached the same level as Japanese cars.
From the current market pattern and the development trajectory of pure electric new energy vehicles, it can be inferred that in the future, two types of hybrid vehicles with ultra-high cost performance and long driving range will become the main development direction.
Ultra-cost-effective hybrid vehicles can achieve the effect of "the same price of oil and electricity" with better comprehensive performance and considerable comprehensive cost, and directly compete with traditional fuel vehicles, and finally achieve upgrading and replacement. Hybrid vehicles with long driving range can be used as an effective supplement to pure electric vehicles due to the advantages of convenient energy replenishment and no mileage anxiety.
In addition, the highly integrated hybrid special architecture can make full use of the characteristics of the hybrid system, with good performance and low cost, while covering multiple scenarios and adapting to multiple models, which is the mainstream technical route of future hybrid vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that according to the planning of the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0", with the increasingly stringent fuel consumption and emission policies, HEV (a twin-engine vehicle with the advantages of low fuel consumption, strong power, low emission and low noise) as an energy-saving upgrade plan for traditional fuel vehicles will usher in high-speed penetration in 2020-2025. Previously, due to the subsidies and policies of independent brands to focus on the development of PHEV, less HEV models were launched, and the current HEV sales in the domestic market were monopolized by Honda and Toyota.
With the maturity of the hybrid technology of its own brand, the HEV market has recently been planned, the Great Wall Lemon DHT system has been planned to be equipped with the heV model when the system was released, GAC and Geely also released the HEV version of the model, the comprehensive performance of the product is not lost to Japanese manufacturers. Therefore, by 2025, with the rapid penetration of HEV models and a sharp increase in sales, the related products of independent brands will break the monopoly of Japanese manufacturers and greatly increase the proportion of independent brands in the HEV market.
Editor| Zhang Yi
Audit | Wu Xin