Wanbo is from the Vice Pilot Temple
Smart car reference | Official account AI4Auto
Musk may not have imagined that a war black swan would make Tesla's highly anticipated low-cost electric car program more difficult.
What's going on?
Affected by the international situation, the price of metal nickel has gone crazy. LME (London Metal Exchange) nickel trading price rose more than 100% a day, trading price exceeded 100,000 US dollars / ton in two days.
And nickel, but the key raw material of power batteries, the original price has been high, this unexpected price increase, is worse.
Musk or other new electric forces, supply is more difficult, more cost-effective models are more difficult.
If you don't do well, the existing models will also increase in price. Friends who want to buy an electric car, you have to pay attention.
Nickel prices soared, why hurt low-cost electric vehicles?
This has to start from the application of metal nickel in electric vehicle power batteries.
Originally, the metal nickel was not so precious, and it was only used on a large scale in the production of stainless steel. But when the new energy vehicle outlet came, metal nickel, because of its unique role in improving the energy density of power batteries, also took off in this wave.
Specifically, nickel is mainly used in the cathode material precursor of ternary lithium batteries.
Nickel, applied in the form of nickel sulfate to the cathode precursor, because it can improve material activity, is the secret weapon of the high energy density of ternary lithium batteries.
The ternary lithium battery, due to the different ratios of these three materials, can be divided into Ni: Mn equal type and Ni: Mn unequal type. The latter is also known as high nickel batteries because of the high ratio of nickel elements and high energy density, which is the mainstream direction of ternary lithium batteries applied to electric vehicles.
In terms of application scale, driven by the new energy automobile industry, the scale of high-nickel batteries has expanded rapidly in recent years.
According to Cinda Securities, by 2025, the installed capacity of high-nickel batteries in the mainland will reach 262.4Gwh, and the corresponding nickel sulfate consumption will reach 1.0011 million tons, if calculated according to the 20% nickel loss in the processing process, the demand will exceed 1.38 million tons. According to this calculation, the demand for nickel metal in the mainland will reach 310,000 tons, and the total global demand will be 890,000 tons.
So the question is, can the global nickel metal production meet the nickel demand of the electric vehicle industry?
Caitong Securities predicts that in the 10 years from 2020 to 2030, the compound annual growth rate of nickel demand in the power battery industry will be 28.5%, and the nickel metal used for battery production last year accounted for about 15% of global nickel production. Combined with data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), global nickel metal production in 2021 is 2.7 million tons, according to which only 405,000 tons of nickel metal was supplied to the battery industry last year.
It is more than double the distance from 890,000 tons in 2025.
From the perspective of the industry, the supply of nickel metal, in fact, has been in a state of tension for a long time, and the price is also rising continuously, and this time, affected by the black swan event of the war, the price of nickel metal has risen by more than 100% overnight, and the price has increased by 2.5 times in two days, and the transaction price has exceeded 100,000 US dollars (632,100 yuan) / ton.
According to this price increase, the pressure of battery costs, even the cost control master Musk, is helpless to Tesla at a lower price.
According to the need for 750 tons of metal nickel per GWh high-nickel battery (NCM 811 type as an example), for every 10,000 yuan / ton of nickel metal price, the cost of each GWh high-nickel battery will increase by 500-7.5 million yuan.
In terms of the price increase of nickel metal in the past two days, the cost of the 80KWh high-nickel battery pack equipped with Tesla Model 3 will increase by at least 150 million yuan.
This is still positioned in the high-end Tesla Model 3, for Musk, who is good at controlling costs, he can make up for it elsewhere, but for low-cost electric vehicles with small profit margins, the increased battery cost of 150 million yuan is a fatal thing.
After all, Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, the whole vehicle will sell more than 30,000 pieces.
Other raw materials are also rising
What are the key raw materials for power batteries?
At present, the electric vehicle power battery is basically a situation in which the two routes of lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery are equally divided into the world.
As far as these two kinds of batteries are concerned, lithium, cobalt, and manganese are three metals, which are inseparable raw materials.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries, mainly lithium iron phosphate as the positive electrode, carbon element as the negative electrode of lithium ion batteries, compared to ternary lithium batteries, the advantage is that phosphorus and iron reserves are abundant, the price is relatively low, but also has a safety advantage. Blade batteries, which BYD officially promises to "never catch fire", fall into this category.
And ternary lithium batteries, in addition to the crazy nickel in the above article, there are two vital elements: cobalt and manganese. The "ternary" in the ternary lithium battery we are familiar with refers to the three metal elements of the cathode precursor: nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), and manganese (Mn).
These 3 types of metal elements perform their respective functions in ternary lithium batteries:
Cobalt element belongs to a class of active elements, responsible for stabilizing the layered structure of the material and improving the discharge capacity of the material; while manganese element, the nature is relatively stable, so the battery charge and discharge process, in the material plays a supporting role.
However, cobalt element, because the global reserves are small, belongs to rare metal elements, the price has been high, and therefore, the entire industry is currently more inclined to reduce the overall cost of ternary lithium batteries by increasing the ternary ratio of nickel. Musk has been trying to reduce the proportion of cobalt before.
So naturally, high-nickel batteries have become the mainstream choice for ternary lithium batteries.
In addition, there is a class of ternary lithium batteries, using aluminum metal instead of manganese, becoming another "yuan", that is, we often say NCA batteries, although the metal elements change, but in essence, manganese and aluminum, more reserves and similar chemical properties, so there is no essential difference, and the amount used in ternary lithium batteries is not much.
The three main metals lithium, nickel and cobalt, with the rise in value of new energy vehicles, the price of raw materials remains high, which has become a key factor affecting the popularity of electric vehicles. Taking lithium metal as an example, as of today, the domestic lithium metal price is reported at 2.686 million yuan / ton, an increase of more than 58% from 1.7 million yuan / ton at the beginning of the year. Cobalt metal, which has also risen by more than 11% this year, has been quoted at 553,800 yuan / ton so far.
The price of key metal elements has soared all the way to the cost of electric vehicles, is there no other solution?
Sodium-ion batteries count as one.
The so-called sodium-ion battery and lithium battery work on the same principle, but the substance responsible for transporting electrons has changed from lithium ion to sodium ion. The biggest advantage is that it bypasses rare metals such as lithium and cobalt, and the global reserves are huge, which can be extracted by the sea or salt lakes.
But on the other hand, the energy density of sodium-ion batteries is much lower than that of lithium-ion batteries, which is also a difficult point for the current academic and industry to concentrate on breakthroughs.
At present, the world's major battery manufacturers have also begun to study sodium-ion batteries.
The most representative company is CATL. At the end of last year, CATL has completed the industrial layout of sodium-ion batteries and is ready to put into production at any time. According to the data released by the official, the energy density of the first generation of sodium-ion batteries in the Ningde era has reached the highest level of 160Wh/kg in the industry, but it is still lower than the energy density of the current mainstream lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Sodium-ion batteries can also avoid being stuck in the neck of other "lithium" resource countries, so during the recent two sessions, NetEase founder Ding Lei also specially proposed that efforts should be increased to encourage the development of sodium-ion batteries.
Domestic electric vehicles are more difficult
The price of nickel cobalt lithium soared, and the biggest pressure may not be Musk, after all, his low-cost electric vehicle, still on the drawings, the high-end Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, the world is selling happily.
Perhaps the most injured are the domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers.
For example, in addition to Weilai, including SAIC, Great Wall, Geely, Changan and new car-making forces, they are competing in the "mass" market with the widest audience, and once raw materials rise, cost control and profit margins are further squeezed.
For example, among the new forces, Nezha Automobile, which has recently been delivering a steady rise, is an example, and all models on sale are about 100,000 yuan, and most of the models use ternary lithium batteries. The profit margin is not large, and the rise of battery raw materials is undoubtedly another layer of profit pressure. Just squeezed into the first echelon, it encountered greater macro challenges.
On the other hand, the lack of reserves of key battery raw materials in the mainland is another problem.
Taking nickel metal as an example, the proven nickel metal resources in the mainland account for only 3% of the world, and the world's major nickel metal production sites are concentrated in Indonesia, the Philippines and Russia. According to the data of Baichuan Yingfu, the independent nickel sulfate production supply of the mainland in 2020 is 453,000 tons, and the output in the first three quarters of 2021 is 386,000 tons, and this year, it will be a watershed for the mainland nickel sulfate industry to be self-sufficient, and after this year, there will be a supply gap.
External supply is tight and prices are high, and the overall premium capacity of the new energy automobile industry is low.
So in the final analysis, the domestic new energy automobile industry, on the one hand, must solve the current hidden diseases, take the high-end market, and pursue greater profit margins.
On the other hand, perhaps Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue's call is very far-sighted - to use power battery raw materials as strategic resources and incorporate them into the management of the national strategic reserve resources.
Either have to work on other routes, hydrogen fuel cells, sodium-ion batteries...
What do you think?
By the way, the latest news, Tesla's high-end version of the Model 3 and Model Y, both rose by 10,000 yuan.