The rising price of raw materials has led to an increase in manufacturing costs, will the price of electric vehicles rise again?

Each ton exceeded $100,000 (about 634,000 yuan), up 247% from the previous trading day's initial price! On March 8, the price of nickel futures on the London Metal Exchange, known as the wind vane of global metal trading, rose sharply, showing a record high, leading to the firm's decision to temporarily suspend nickel futures. The pre-suspension offer was US$80,000 (about RMB507,000). On March 16, the London Metal Exchange (LME) capped the trade limit on nickel at 5%.

Not only the price of nickel has risen to the sky, but the prices of raw materials upstream such as lithium, aluminum and cobalt have also risen fiercely, which has put pressure on the manufacturing costs of automobiles and parts. As a result, the industry has also sparked speculation about whether electric vehicles will rise again in price.

1

Raw material prices continue to rise

The soaring price of nickel futures on the London Metal Exchange has attracted the attention of relevant domestic institutions. "The current nickel price has seriously deviated from the fundamentals and lost its guiding significance for spot prices." On the evening of March 11, the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association issued a statement on the official micro, saying that this deviated from the original intention of serving the real economy and caused serious harm to the global nickel and upstream and downstream related industries.

Business agency data show that compared with the beginning of this year, the price of lithium carbonate rose from 280,000 yuan / ton to 510,000 yuan / ton, the price of nickel 155,000 yuan / ton rose from 228,000 yuan / ton, and the price of cobalt rose from 497,000 yuan / ton to 568,000 yuan / ton. On March 15, the domestic aluminum ingot market quoted 21,700 yuan per ton, which also increased slightly compared with the beginning of the year.

"Nickel, cobalt, aluminum, lithium carbonate, etc. are not only the main raw materials for power batteries, but also nickel, aluminum and other materials are also important materials required for the manufacture of automobiles and new energy vehicles." Fan Yongjun, secretary general of the Chengdu New Energy Automobile Industry Promotion and Application Promotion Association, said in an interview with the "China Automobile News" reporter that nickel is an indispensable raw material for stainless steel production, such as the body of Tesla Cyberruck electric pickup truck using stainless steel, aluminum and aluminum alloys are also widely used in automobile manufacturing, especially in today's body lightweighting is more and more valued, aluminum alloys instead of steel, iron and other materials in new energy vehicles have increased. According to the "Roadmap for Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicles" released by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, by 2025, the amount of aluminum used in bicycles is expected to reach 250 kg.

"At present, the price fluctuations of domestic automotive-related metals and other raw materials are basically synchronized with the international market." Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, told the "China Automotive News" reporter that although there is an impact on the international situation to a certain extent, the inflated price of nickel is mainly related to market speculation, which may gradually fall, although it will not have a big impact on automobile production and sales in the long run, but in the short term may bring pressure on production costs to power battery companies.

2

Battery companies are still accelerating their expansion

Since last year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles have been growing continuously. According to the latest data, in February this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland reached 368,000 units and 334,000 units, respectively, an increase of 2 times and 1.8 times year-on-year. The growth of production and sales of new energy vehicles has also brought about the continuous growth of demand for power batteries, and the price of raw materials continues to rise, and the impact on the cost of power batteries cannot be ignored.

Some professionals estimate that the price increase of nickel, cobalt and lithium carbonate, the three important raw materials, may lead to an increase in the cost of 1GWh power batteries by at least 155 million yuan. Morgan Stanley estimates that the soaring nickel price alone could increase the production cost of an electric car by $1,000, or about 6,323 yuan. "Therefore, many power battery companies are vigorously expanding production for the purpose of sharing costs and meeting market demand." Fan Yongjun said that under normal circumstances, for the same lithium battery products, the cost of high output is definitely lower than that of low output, and now the market demand is strong, although the price increase factor of raw materials is restricted, it has also become one of the driving forces for the expansion of power batteries to a certain extent.

Indeed, since March alone, a number of power battery companies have announced expansions. In March, Sunwoda's subsidiary Sunwoda Automotive Battery announced that it will invest in the construction of a 30GWh power battery project in Zhuhai, with a total investment of about 12 billion yuan, of which the total investment in fixed assets is about 10 billion yuan.

At the same time, Jiewei Power and longbai group, an A-share listed company, signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement, the two sides reached a preferential supply and preferential policies, Jiewei power will purchase lithium battery cathode and negative materials from Longbai group from 2022 to 2024, and the annual procurement quantity of both materials is planned to be no less than 50% of the use.

Guoxuan Hi-Tech said that the Hefei New Station High-tech Zone 50GWh project is under intensive construction, and the first phase of the project is expected to be officially put into operation at the end of March 2023. After the completion of the two phases, it is expected to achieve the goal of an annual output of 50GWh power batteries.

Previously, Ewell Lithium Energy announced that it signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Huizhou Municipal Government, and the two sides will deepen strategic cooperation to build a 100 billion yuan new energy battery industry cluster in Huizhou. The agreement stipulates that when land supply, energy supply, etc. meet the conditions for the landing of the project, the total output value of Ewell Lithium Energy and holding enterprises will reach 100 billion yuan by 2025, helping the development and growth of the new energy vehicle battery industry in Huizhou.

In addition, BYD, Hive Energy, and Lishen Battery have also announced plans to expand production projects. The agency expects that in 2022, the global installed capacity of power batteries will reach 450GWh, and China's domestic installed capacity will reach 230GWh, accounting for about 50%.

Under the pressure of the tightening supply of power batteries brought about by many factors, domestic vehicle companies have begun to take a variety of ways such as investment, equity participation and cooperation, and "join hands" with upstream power battery companies. Among them, in February this year, Chery New Energy and Jiewei Power signed a strategic cooperation agreement, the two sides reached in-depth cooperation on the supply and demand linkage of power batteries and production capacity guarantee, Chery New Energy intends to purchase a total of about 5 billion yuan of power battery products from Jiewei Power in the next three years.

3

Will electric cars increase in price again?

The sharp rise in raw material prices and the large-scale expansion of battery companies have already had an impact on the electric vehicle market and its prices.

On March 15, according to Tesla's official website in China, the model 3 high-performance version and the Model Y long-endurance and high-performance version increased in price, and the price increased by 18,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan. It is reported that this is the third time that Tesla China has raised the price of its products this year. On March 10, Tesla China has publicly raised the price of the Model 3 high-performance version and the Model Y long-endurance and high-performance version by 10,000 yuan each. On January 1 this year, the Tesla Model 3 rear wheel drive version has increased by 10,000 yuan, and the Tesla Model Y rear wheel drive version has increased its price by 21,088 yuan.

On March 15, BYD Automobile will adjust the official guidance price of new energy models related to Dynasty Network and Ocean Network, ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 yuan. The price adjustment took effect from 00:00 on March 16.

Among the electric vehicles that increased in price in March, there was also a price increase of 12,000 yuan on March 1, and a price increase of 7,000 yuan on the same day. On March 4, GAC Aion AION Y increased prices by 10,000 yuan, GAC Aion V Plus by 5,000 yuan, and GAC Aion S Plus by 4,000 yuan. From March 31, the entire department of NIO will no longer provide a subsidy of 5400 yuan.

The reporter visited a number of car companies and learned that this round of price increases is as little as 1,000 yuan and as much as tens of thousands of yuan. According to incomplete statistics, since entering March, more than 30 electric vehicles from nearly 20 new energy vehicle companies have announced price increases. However, some car companies are still waiting.

Overall, in this round of price increase models, there are both simple product price increases and price increases that improve product configurations. Previously, the reasons given by the car company officials to announce the price increase were, one was the subsidy decline, and the other was the shortage of chips. Since the beginning of this year, the price increase of raw materials has also been included.

Cui Dongshu said that in the current raw material price increase, chip shortage has not been fundamentally alleviated, power battery supply tightening, the domestic car market growth is facing greater environmental pressure, the growth of the car market is differentiated, the sales of new energy vehicles are hugely different, the sales of main models are outstanding, and the sales of some new energy vehicle products are not high. Therefore, only continuous product innovation and independent control of the industrial chain are the basis for new energy vehicles to obtain greater increments. In addition, he believes that the recent sporadic epidemic at home and abroad, the weakness of the stock market and other factors, or to a certain extent, will affect the march car market recovery slowdown.

Text: Zhao Jianguo Editor: Huang Xia Typography: Wang Kun