Auto-First | Zhang Chi
Raw material prices have risen, new energy subsidies have declined, car companies have been unable to hold back, and the suspension of production and price increases of models that do not make money have become a must, and have now spread to the entire new energy automobile industry.
On the evening of March 15, BYD Automobile issued the "Explanation on Model Price Adjustment". According to reports, affected by the continuous sharp rise in raw material prices, BYD Automobile will adjust the official guidance price of new energy models related to Dynasty Network and Ocean Network, with an increase of 3,000-6,000 yuan. The price adjustment will take effect from 00:00 on March 16.
As early as the end of January this year, BYD had adjusted the price of new energy models related to Dynasty Network and Ocean Network, with a maximum increase of 7,000 yuan.
BYD sold 91,000 vehicles in February, 4.5 times the same period last year, giving it enough confidence to adjust prices again and again. In view of whether the price adjustment will have an impact on sales, Auto-First consulted the relevant person in charge of BYD, which did not respond positively, he believes that if the price of raw materials continues to rise, the possibility of re-price adjustment is not ruled out.
Up to now, Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng Automobile, Ideal Automobile, Nezha Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Zero Run, Geometry Automobile, WM Motor, GAC Aean and many other car companies have announced price increases for new energy models, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan, and the price increase tide of new energy vehicles has surged forward.
In 2022, the subsidy for new energy vehicles will decline by 30%, and since this year, the upward pressure on the price of automobile raw materials has further increased, and the cost control of new energy vehicle companies has "made it worse". The price of lithium carbonate upstream raw materials has risen nearly 8 times in more than a year, in addition, the price of cobalt and other battery materials has also remained high, in the case of lithium-ion battery prices have risen by 10-20% last year, the price of some key materials in 2022 has soared, the pressure on new energy vehicle companies has increased sharply, and some models with small profit margins have been pulled below the profit line.
On February 14 this year, Euler informed dealers that they would no longer accept orders from black cats and white cats, and for the reasons for the suspension of production, Euler gave an explanation that "due to the shortage of chips, the supply of spare parts can not guarantee production and many other reasons, resulting in a large backlog of orders for "black and white cats" models, and the customer purchase cycle is too long, affecting the customer experience." ”
Euler did not immediately pass on the suspension of production due to price pressure, which caused a lot of speculation in the industry at that time. Since then, Euler brand CEO Dong Yudong frankly said that these two models are in a state of loss, taking the black cat as an example, after the rise in raw material prices in 2022, the loss of a single unit exceeded 10,000 yuan.
Unlike Euler's shy answer to the "black and white cat" approach of stopping production, after the subsidy for new energy vehicles in 2022 declined, Tesla directly passed on the model price difference to consumers. According to Tesla's official website, the price of the Model 3 high-performance version is 367,900 yuan, up 18,000 yuan; the price of the Model Y long-endurance version is 375,900 yuan, up 18,000 yuan.
Different from Tesla's "rough" price adjustment, the price adjustment of volkswagen series electric vehicles is "mild" a lot, and auto-first learned from the FAW-Volkswagen 4S store of Beijing Oriental Foundation Automobile City in early February that at that time, the ID family products had 8,000 to 20,000 yuan of discounts, and the store introduced that starting from March 1, the official guidance price of ID models will rise by 5400 yuan for the whole series, and the impact of the previous subsidy decline is borne by the manufacturer.
In fact, the tide of new energy vehicle price increases this year, the current inhibition of the market is not obvious, according to the data of the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, the wholesale sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 317,000 units in February, an increase of 189% year-on-year, down 24% month-on-month, and the month-on-month decline was smaller than in previous years. Retail sales of new energy passenger cars reached 272,000 units in February, up 181% year-on-year and down 23% month-on-month, better than the trend in February of the calendar year.
After years of cultivation, the new energy vehicle market has a certain resilience, cui Dongshu, secretary general of the association, said to Auto-First that as long as companies dare to increase prices, they will not have much impact on the market.
Cui Dongshu believes that the current general increase in car prices is mainly to deal with the rise in raw material prices, and the price of some models may have some impact on the purchase of some consumers, but China's new energy model products are abundant, and consumers' diversified choices will balance out these negative factors, and with the recovery of raw material prices, the negative factors of rising new energy vehicle prices will also disappear.
There is also a view in the industry that if the price of raw materials continues to rise, it is not ruled out that the company may adjust the price again, and the risk of suspension of production may be increased for price-sensitive low-end models. At present, the new energy automobile industry, which is still in the growth stage, faces a fragile supply chain and various uncertain negative factors, and the cyclical fluctuations are normal, but the upward trend of the entire market is irreversible. (Some of the pictures are from the Internet)