In recent days, the sharp rise in oil prices is not new news. From the "5-character head" oil price before 2020 to today's 8 yuan or even 9 yuan to start, in the gas station, when the owners shouted out the "95, full", they also had a little less confidence than before.
Such a scene can even make those loyal fans of oil trucks turn their eyes to the "green cards" speeding on the highway, after all, no one wants to bear the higher and higher cost of car maintenance. Taking advantage of this opportunity, some car companies have also begun to market, such as Weima - oil prices have soared on March 9, WM Motor founder Shen Hui tweeted that in the case of refueling 50 liters to cost more than 450 yuan, it is obvious that the tram is more cost-effective. "450 yuan, converted to charge a pure electric car for several months."
However, for the owners of fuel trucks, trams still have many difficulties to adapt to, such as dismal second-hand discounts, almost unavoidable battery attenuation, and the sometimes troublesome "charging parking space is difficult to find" problem. What's more, the price of one of the main factors that attract consumers for electric vehicles has begun to rise slowly today.
The price hike began late last year and early this year. As early as December 2021, Zero-run Cars and Tesla took the lead in announcing price increases, involving models including zero-run T03, Tesla Model 3, Model Y, etc., with price increases ranging from 8,000 to 20,000; on New Year's Day, Nezha, SAIC Feifan, Polar Star, Extreme Krypton Automobile and other brands also announced price increase news at the same time, and after this, there were countless car companies that played price increases - Xiaopeng, BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling, SAIC/FAW-Volkswagen, Ford, Ford, Car companies such as the Great Wall are on the list, involving models ranging from cheap cars to luxury coupes.
The reason for the increase in the price of electric vehicles, on the one hand, is due to the decline of subsidies. On December 31 last year, the Ministry of Finance and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued a notice saying that the subsidy standard for new energy electric vehicles in 2022 "will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021", and the policy has been implemented on January 1 this year.
For a long time, subsidies have been one of the important reasons why car companies dare to sell new energy vehicles at low prices, and now subsidies have been greatly reduced, and they must also use price increases to make up for higher and higher production costs - it is not difficult to find in the international market that it is not difficult to find that important raw materials for batteries such as cobalt and lithium carbonate, as well as metals such as manganese and nickel involved in the production and manufacturing links, the recent increase is almost one price a day.
Compared with the same period last year and this year's raw material prices, the average spot price of electrolytic cobalt in January last year was 270,000 yuan / ton, and now more than 540,000 yuan / ton, up nearly doubled year-on-year; the price range of lithium carbonate in January last year was about 50,000 yuan / ton, and on March 18 this year, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate officially exceeded the 500,000 yuan mark, and the transaction price of the industrial lithium carbonate market also rose to about 480,000 yuan; nickel is not to mention - when nickel rose by more than 110% in one day, the highest touched 100,000 US dollars / At the end of the day, no one expects the market to return to rationality in the short term.
The first to feel the pressure on raw material prices is the supply chain enterprises such as the Ningde era, and recently there are reports quoting a relevant person in charge of a new energy vehicle company as saying that the power battery of the Ningde era has "increased its price twice" since the second half of last year. If calculated according to the battery cost of a new energy vehicle, "the last time it rose by 10,000 yuan, it rose by 10,000 yuan not long ago."
On March 19, Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang also affirmed the price increase of the battery on social media, saying that as long as the brand that contracted with the battery manufacturer to determine the price increase in the second quarter, the price increase was basically announced immediately. "Most of the brands that have not increased their prices have not been negotiated, and after the negotiations, they will generally increase their prices." Lee wanted to say.
For enterprises, the cost pressure from the raw material side is unbearable and cannot be changed, but stabilizing sales by increasing prices cannot be regarded as a long-term solution. In the face of this situation, more and more car companies have begun to push their own lithium iron phosphate battery models, rather than higher-priced ternary lithium battery models, and even included the order ratio into the terminal store assessment.
"If the price of raw materials such as nickel and cobalt continues to rise, car companies will either have to support themselves or can only stop production of ternary lithium models." In addition, the subsidy slide will also have a certain role in promoting the choice of lithium iron phosphate for car companies. A new energy vehicle developer said in an interview with the media. Even if the price of raw materials is rising, the cost of 50kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack is still 5,000-10,000 yuan lower than the same ternary lithium battery pack. ”
From the characteristics of the two kinds of batteries, the energy storage density of ternary lithium batteries is much higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, and it is more resistant to low temperature invasion than lithium iron phosphate batteries; on the other hand, lithium iron phosphate batteries, although their endurance is not as good as ternary lithium batteries, their spontaneous combustion risk is relatively low, the cycle life is longer, and the cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries is also lower.
All along, ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries have almost never won or lost on the question of who is superior and who is inferior, but nowadays it is coinciding with the surge in raw materials for ternary lithium batteries, and safety and stability have also been put on the highest agenda by major car companies. In such a situation, lithium iron phosphate batteries have begun to encroach on the territory of ternary lithium batteries at a high speed - data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that the cumulative loading of lithium iron phosphate batteries in January and February this year reached 16654MWh, a cumulative increase of 203.1% year-on-year; and the domestic lithium iron phosphate battery loading volume has accounted for about 60% of the total installed vehicles, far exceeding the ternary lithium.
In this way, ternary lithium batteries may become the "Other" in the battery industry and completely lose their right to speak. But on the other hand, Tesla and other car companies that started with ternary lithium batteries are also reluctant to sit back and watch this happen, for example, Tesla launched a cobalt-free high-nickel 4680 battery on the battery day in 2020, trying to reduce costs by adjusting the ratio of raw materials.
However, from the current structure of ternary lithium batteries, increasing the content of nickel in the battery will reduce the stability of the battery cycle, and the vehicle safety risk will also increase. An industry insider also said in an interview with the media that improving the safety of high-nickel ternary lithium batteries is "still more complicated".
Because of this, high-nickel ternary lithium batteries are currently unable to be applied on a large scale. Even Tesla, which shouted the slogan of cobalt-free batteries, had to obediently use lithium iron phosphate batteries that had previously looked down upon. From this point of view, the development path of ternary lithium batteries is still obstructed and long, and before the technology is truly transformed, its trough period may be maintained for a long time.
*Author: Spades and The Sword, image from Yandex