On March 17, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a news that since 24:00 on the same day, the domestic gasoline price has been raised by 750 yuan / ton, and the price of diesel has been raised by 720 yuan / ton. Equivalent to the price increase, the price of No. 92 gasoline was raised by 0.58 yuan / liter, the price of No. 95 gasoline was raised by 0.62 yuan / liter, and the price of No. 0 diesel was raised by 0.61 yuan / liter. This round is the fifth price adjustment in 2022, and it is also the first "five consecutive increases" in the year. Coupled with a price increase at the end of December last year, domestic refined oil prices have "six consecutive rises", setting a record for the largest increase since the new version of the pricing mechanism in 2013.
There are two points to talk about! First, the implementation of the "six consecutive increases" in domestic refined oil prices, No. 95 gasoline will enter the 9 yuan era. So after the last time the international oil price broke through $100, did the domestic oil price reach this high? On July 11, 2008, the highest point of international crude oil reached $147.25, the highest price in history. What was the domestic oil price at that time? At the same time, international oil prices have fallen sharply for two consecutive days, whether it is Brent crude oil or WTI crude oil, it has fallen back to less than $100. West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (WTI), which delivered April on the New York Mercantile Exchange, fell $1.40, or nearly 1.5 percent, to close at $95.04 a barrel on Wednesday. WTI crude futures closed down 6.4 percent on Tuesday, officially entering a bear market.
Second, will high oil prices prompt more people to buy electric vehicles? This is indisputable and will definitely prompt more people to buy electric cars, and I am one of them. The domestic No. 95 oil price reaches a new high level, which will form a backward mechanism, that is, to prompt car buyers to choose electric vehicles. Even if the price of oil does not rise, many people also have the intention of buying new cars and changing cars to buy electric vehicles. Because the cost of electric vehicle travel is much lower than that of gasoline and diesel vehicles. The taxi and ride-hailing drivers I surveyed said it was 10 times lower than the majority of fuel cars, and only a few drivers said it was less than 7 times or so.
Now we see that taxis, ride-hailing cars and buses in cities above the third tier are basically electric vehicles. At the same time, I often glance at the license plates of cars waiting for red lights during walking time, and find that there are more and more green license plates. Among them, Haikou has the most. That's pretty telling!
I didn't expect to be happy too soon! Electric cars are starting to rise intensively! Tesla prices rose twice in a week, AND announced another price increase on March 16... Tesla's price increase is around $2,000 each time, and the price of domestic electric vehicles has increased by more than 10,000 yuan. Since the beginning of this year, Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, BYD, GAC Eian, Euler, Volkswagen, Zero Run, Extreme Kr, Ford, WM and other brands of new energy models have announced price increases, including most of the current mainstream new energy models in the market.
This round of electric vehicle price increases is forced by the market, and it is also a helpless move by manufacturers. Previously, some manufacturers bought an electric car and lost 10,000 or 20,000 yuan. Coupled with the cancellation of most subsidies this year, electric vehicle manufacturers are feeling cost pressure.
The source of this round of price increases points to "the continuous sharp rise in raw material prices". Although in recent years, car companies have worked hard to reduce the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles and make the terminal price keep pace with fuel vehicles, but in recent years, the price increase of raw materials has caused resistance to cost reduction. Among the raw materials of power batteries, the pressure of "nickel" has increased sharply in recent days. Nickel is an important raw material for ternary lithium batteries used in many new energy models. Car companies that have increased prices will continue to come; some car companies have begun to change the technical route: in the low-end models, the use of low-energy density, cheaper, but do not need nickel lithium iron phosphate batteries. At the end of the day, this is not the fundamental way out.
In the future, with the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the supply of neon and palladium that restricts the chip is tight, and the price increase will also come. The lack of core in automobiles, including electric vehicles, will also be aggravated, and continuing to increase prices is a high probability event.
On Twitter a few days ago, Musk tweeted that raw material prices are rising too fast and are ready to raise Tesla prices to alleviate cost pressures. Many netizens left messages to give full understanding, which gave him the courage to raise prices. In other words, the price increase is within the limits acceptable to consumers. From the perspective of China's domestic market, from January and February, the year-on-year growth rate of new energy vehicle sales has reached a level of about 150%. At present, consumers are acceptable for price increases.
Of course, I couldn't stop my determination to buy an electric car!