Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: Liao Wei
Oil prices soared, and new energy vehicles also set off a wave of price increases.
Following Tesla's "three-a-week rise", BYD, Nezha, Xiaopeng, Weima, Zero Run, Geometry Auto and many other car companies have recently joined the "price increase army", with the highest increase of 26,000 yuan. Among them, WM Motors announced on March 19 that the price of its products will be raised by 7,000 yuan to 26,000 yuan.
According to the incomplete statistics of the Times Weekly reporter, since the beginning of the year, more than 20 car companies have raised the price of nearly 50 models of their models. New car-making forces, joint venture brands, imported brands, etc. are all in the range of price increases, and the price increase ranges from 1%-10%, ranging from less than 1,000 yuan to more than 10,000 yuan.
On the evening of March 19, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Automobile, posted on the social platform, "At present, brands that have contracted with battery manufacturers to determine the price increase in the second quarter have basically announced price increases immediately." If there is no price increase, most of them have not yet been negotiated, and the price will generally increase immediately after waiting for the negotiation. The increase in battery costs in the second quarter was very outrageous. ”
"This is a normal measure chosen by downstream car companies that have successively increased the price of upstream materials and cannot afford to do so." At present, consumers are more understanding and accepting of the price increase of car companies. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, told the Times Weekly reporter that "the current raw material prices are very abnormal, and it is expected that the second half of this year may return to the normal price range."
The price of raw materials has risen too fiercely, and car companies have raised prices
"Raw materials are clearly our headwinds, and maybe for a while we need to pass on some of the gains to the market." Volkswagen Group CFO Arno Antlitz previously said.
Taking lithium carbonate, the core raw material of power batteries, as an example, according to business data, most of the raw material suppliers currently offer battery-grade lithium carbonate to about 500,000 yuan / ton. For the soaring price of lithium carbonate, recently, a domestic head miner insider told the Times Weekly reporter, "We previously thought that (battery-grade lithium carbonate) may touch the peak of the price in the previous two years, but we did not expect that after a period of stability, it reached the current price."
An executive of a power battery company told the Times Weekly reporter that due to the impact of the industry cycle, some overseas miners have previously closed down a large number, and some large miners in normal operation cannot fully open their production capacity under the continuous situation of the epidemic. At present, there are already many miners expanding production, but it will take a year or two for the production capacity to be truly released to meet the needs of the industry.
Far water is difficult to quench the thirst of the near, in the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain of the power battery factory, the main engine factory has been under pressure for a long time, and now only the pressure to the terminal.
"We have survived to the end, there is no way to choose to raise prices, upstream raw materials prices are too fierce." On March 16, GAC Aean dealer told the Times Weekly reporter. On the 4th of this month, GAC Aeon has raised the official guidance price of many of its models.
In the case of a mismatch between supply and demand, industry insiders expect that the price of upstream raw materials represented by lithium will continue to rise. Guotai Junan Research Report pointed out that "the supply increase will not appear soon in the short term (more affect the supply expectations of the long term), and it is expected that the spot price of lithium will still be easy to rise and fall in the short term." The domestic cobalt raw material price is stable in the short term, and the price adjustment logic of cobalt salt smelting enterprises has shifted to demand-led."
Recently, Fang Yunzhou, founder and chairman of Nezha Automobile, revealed in an interview with the Times Weekly reporter that rising raw material prices have pressure on the current operation of enterprises, but in the long run, it is not a big problem. "It now appears that this problem may take more than a year or more to alleviate."
Cui Dongshu also believes that in the case of the price of upstream raw materials continues to rise in the short term, it is understandable that car companies will increase the price of their new energy vehicles. "The current raw material prices are very abnormal, and it is expected that the second half of this year may return to the normal price range."
When will the price of the car be adjusted?
In the industry's view, if the subsequent raw material prices return to the normal price range, the new energy vehicles that have increased in price will most likely also be pulled back, but the specific time is still unknown.
Some insiders said that from the existing cases in the domestic market, there are traces of price reduction for electric vehicles. At the beginning of 2021, BMW announced that it would adjust the price of the BMW ix3 from 509,900 yuan to 439,900 yuan. In March of the same year, Volvo lowered the price of its first pure electric model, the XC40, by 58,000 yuan.
An industry analyst told the Times Weekly reporter, "With the decline in raw material prices, new energy vehicles will also be reduced in price." On the one hand, the current price of electric vehicles is much higher than that of the same level of fuel vehicles, on the other hand, the price of Tesla products depends on the cost, when Tesla reduces prices, other domestic new energy vehicle companies may also follow."
Previously, Tesla has repeatedly been on the hot search for reducing the price of its products. Musk once said on the 2020 Q2 performance conference call: "Tesla's price is not close enough to the people, and I want more people to enjoy the benefits brought by technology." ”
It is understood that Tesla pricing based on cost, when the cost falls, its price will be adjusted accordingly. In the past few years, Tesla has significantly reduced the price of its products through a series of operations such as global production, localization of parts, and the use of lower-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries instead of ternary lithium batteries. In this context, its sales scale has also continued to increase.
Some insiders said that when sales reach a certain scale, Tesla's economies of scale in production and manufacturing are becoming more and more obvious, the right to speak in the industrial chain is also increasing, and there is more room for negotiation in terms of parts supply costs.
Different from Tesla, at present, most of the domestic new energy vehicle companies scale effect still needs to be improved, relatively speaking, the profit is relatively thin, Fang Yunzhou said, "the industry is developing too fast, the industrial supporting environment is not mature, resulting in the overall supply chain resources of new energy vehicles are tight." At present, the cost of new energy vehicles is about 30,000 yuan higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles of the same level. The cost of new energy vehicles is balanced with traditional vehicles, and it will probably take about 2025."
Fang Yunzhou added, "For a single enterprise, if you want to form a car scale effect, its production and sales scale needs to be more than 500,000 vehicles / year, which is why everyone has always said that it is necessary to quickly achieve annual production and sales data of 500,000 vehicles."
Previously, some new force car companies have repeatedly shouted that they must cross the internal friction of the new forces and compete with the head fuel car companies for the market, "converting toyota, GM, and Volkswagen fuel vehicle users into smart electric vehicle users, otherwise it is meaningless for everyone to compete in the case of a far less share than fuel vehicles." However, some insiders said that the new forces should have more progress in technology, supply chain, products, etc., and reduce the cost to basically the same as fuel vehicles, in order to really talk about replacing fuel vehicles.