Reporter 丨Dong Tianyi
Last week, the new energy vehicle market ushered in a wave of price increases.
According to the incomplete statistics of the "Daily Economic News" reporter, from March 15 to 20 in less than a week, Tesla, BYD, Chery New Energy, Xiaopeng Automobile, Nezha Automobile, Zero Run Car, Geely's Geometry Automobile, WM Automobile, Great Wall Euler and other 9 car companies have announced to increase the price of models, with the highest increase of 30,000 yuan.
On March 18 alone, some car companies such as Xiaopeng Motors, Geometric Cars, and Zero-Run Cars issued price increase notices. Among them, the official price adjustment instructions issued by zero-running cars show that due to the impact of the sharp rise in raw material prices and the decline of national subsidies, zero-running cars will adjust the official guidance price after subsidies for all C11 models. After the price adjustment, the price of the zero-run C11 luxury version and the premium version model increased by 20,000 yuan respectively, and the performance version model increased by 30,000 yuan, becoming the new energy model with the highest single increase.
Image source: Zero Run Car official Weibo
On the evening of March 19, WM Motors and Great Wall Euler also announced that they would raise the price of their products, ranging from 6,000 to 26,000 yuan. In addition, in the past 10 days, Tesla has announced three consecutive product prices, and the cumulative price increase of some models has reached 30,000 yuan.
Image source: WM Motor's official Weibo
It is worth mentioning that in February this year, due to the shortage of chips, spare parts supply, raw material price increases and other factors, Euler Automobile announced that its black cat and white cat models stopped receiving orders, and the Euler good cat (including GT version) model also made a price adjustment in early March this year. With the official announcement of the price increase again, the price of the 2022 Euler Good Cat (including GT version) model has increased by about 20,000 yuan compared with the 2021 model.
Image source: Per reporter Zhang Jian photographed (data map)
For the recent price increase in new energy vehicles, Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang said through social media that the increase in battery costs in the second quarter of this year was "very outrageous". From the current point of view, brands that have signed contracts with battery manufacturers to determine the price increase of batteries in the second quarter have basically announced price increases immediately. Most of the brands that have not yet increased their prices have not yet been negotiated, and they will generally increase prices immediately after they are negotiated. Some netizens left a message below: "The wave of rising battery raw material costs has spread to the terminal market. ”
Image source: @Li wants sina weibo
Image source: Sina Weibo
It is worth mentioning that from less than 50,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021 to more than 500,000 yuan / ton at present, the price of lithium, the raw material for automotive power batteries, has achieved ten-fold growth in more than a year. Relevant data show that on March 18, the domestic price of lithium carbonate was reported at 504,000 yuan / ton, up 73.8% from the beginning of the year, up 479.3% year-on-year; the price of another raw material, nickel, was the highest "doubled 5 times" during the year, and was recently in a high level of wide range.
Image source: Kosaisha
According to the first financial report, the relevant person in charge of a new energy vehicle company said that the current battery cost rise is relatively strong, since the second half of last year, the price of the ningde era power battery has increased twice, according to the battery cost of a new energy vehicle car, the last time it rose by 10,000 yuan, and not long ago it rose by 10,000 yuan. "We can't afford to see the price of raw materials such as batteries rise, and in recent months, our new energy vehicles have quietly risen twice." The relevant person in charge of the new energy vehicle company said.
For the above news, the relevant person in charge of the Ningde era told reporters: "No response. ”
"The contradiction between supply and demand in the lithium industry may exist for a long time, and in the short term, the contradiction between supply and demand is difficult to alleviate, and the high price is supported." Northeast Securities said in a relevant research report that on the supply side, the impact of lithium enterprise maintenance has not been completely eliminated, due to the shortage of resources, the overall operating rate of the industry is still less than 50%, and the domestic salt lake is constrained by weather, the output increase is small, and the supply is tight. On the demand side, it is expected that the demand for high nickel is expected to grow month-on-month, the procurement demand is not reduced, the gap between supply and demand has been enlarged, and the downstream procurement replenishment sentiment is expected, and it is expected that lithium prices will continue to rise or remain high.
It is worth mentioning that the problem of soaring lithium prices may have triggered the attention of regulators. Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, previously publicly stated at the press conference of the State Council New Office that this year will moderately accelerate the development of domestic lithium, nickel and other resources, and crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding and price gouging. At the same time, improve the power battery recycling system, support efficient dismantling, recycling and other technical research, and continuously improve the recycling rate and resource utilization efficiency.
In addition, in order to do a good job in ensuring the supply and stable price of lithium resource products and promoting the healthy development of new energy vehicles and power battery industries, the Department of Raw Material Industry and the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the Price Department of the Development and Reform Commission, the Price Supervision and Inspection of the State Administration of Market Supervision and the Anti-Unfair Competition Bureau, recently organized a symposium on the operation of the lithium industry and a symposium on the price increase of upstream materials for power batteries.
Image source: Daily Economic News Infographic
According to the news of The Industrial Information Technology Micro Report, the above-mentioned meeting conducted full exchanges around the market price formation mechanism of lithium salt products, production and consumption, the impact of the power battery industry, and the policy measures to ensure supply and price stability in response to the recent sharp rise in the price of lithium resources and lithium salt products. The meeting requested that upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain should strengthen the docking of supply and demand, work together to form a long-term and stable strategic cooperation relationship, jointly guide the rational return of lithium salt prices, increase efforts to ensure market supply, and better support the healthy development of strategic emerging industries such as new energy vehicles in the mainland.
From the supply side, there is news of the continuous release of the production capacity of listed companies in the market. On March 18, Guoxuan Hi-Tech said on the investor interaction platform that the company's lithium carbonate project was mass-produced in the first quarter of this year, and the production capacity has been gradually released, and the production capacity is expected to be about 10,000 tons this year. Yongxing Materials also revealed that the first production line of the company's second phase of the 20,000-ton battery-grade lithium carbonate project has entered the equipment commissioning stage, which can achieve the goal of putting into operation 10,000 tons of lithium carbonate production capacity at the end of the first quarter.
"The rapid rise in the price of lithium plates is mainly due to the urgent demand for lithium carbonate by lithium iron phosphate manufacturers, especially overseas energy storage batteries, which are smoothly transmitted to lithium prices, and naturally the height of lithium prices is further raised." Fundamentally, short-term lithium supply and demand continue to be tight, lithium prices or will remain strong, and the concentrate side is more certain. Guotai Junan believes that although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently proposed to continue to accelerate the development of domestic lithium resources, the increase in lithium supply will not appear within one year (more affecting the long-term supply expectations), and it is expected that lithium spot prices will still be easy to rise and fall in the short term.
NBD car interaction
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