The continuous soaring price of domestic refined oil products, some high oil price areas have exceeded 9 blocks / liter, the relatively low cost of car use, has become another attractive selling point in addition to free new energy licenses, so that many budget-conscious car buyers once again set their sights on electric vehicles.
However, due to the recent surge in the price of lithium, cobalt and nickel for power battery materials, car companies have not been able to withstand the rising pressure of costs, and have issued price increase letters, "either in price increases, or on the way to price increases." ”
Will wave after wave of price increase heat cool down the heat of new energy? With the intervention of national ministries and commissions to interview upstream raw material enterprises, when will the cost be reduced again? At that time, consumers can buy electric vehicles again, can they still be cheaper? It has become a hot topic.
Ideal: not increasing the price now,
It's because the price increase hasn't been negotiated yet
After the sharp rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries this year, NO less than 20 car companies such as BYD, Tesla, Xiaopeng, Weima, Nezha, Zero Run, and Euler have announced price increases, covering a variety of popular models at the high and low end of new energy, with an increase of several thousand yuan to 30,000 yuan. Even Tesla doubled up in a week, with the three high-end models rising by 28,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan.
Table Source "Automotive Cross-Section"
The so-called "selling a loss of more than 10,000 yuan" Euler black cat has stopped taking orders, on the grounds that the price of raw materials has soared, and black cats and white cats have brought huge losses to the company. At present, euler has only euler good cats on sale, announcing a price increase of 6,000 yuan to 7,000 yuan on March 23.
In the face of the price increase frenzy, Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang said on Weibo that all those who negotiated with battery manufacturers immediately announced price increases, and most of them have not yet increased prices, most of which have not been negotiated, and will generally increase prices immediately after negotiation.
"The increase in battery costs in the second quarter was very outrageous. War, politics, and the epidemic have allowed the sale of cars to appreciate in value, and the price of used cars in the United States has risen by 30% overall. ”
It can be seen that the ideal is not to want to increase the price, just wait for the battery manufacturers to negotiate, immediately follow up. In the comments, whether the pricing of the ideal One and the future ideal L9 will be affected by this wave of price increases has become the focus of heated discussion among netizens.
NIO: Flexible decision-making according to the objective environment
Weilai Automobile said: "There is no intention of price increase in the short term", but also pointed out that "the current international raw material prices, including chip supply and demand, have made the cost of the entire supply chain change greatly compared with before." We will also make flexible decisions based on changes in the objective environment. "It provides room for reverie for possible future price adjustments."
In fact, as early as the beginning of this year, with the decline of state subsidies for new energy vehicles, a large number of car companies have risen relatively. At that time, Weilai chose to pay out of its own pocket and provide subsidies, but since March 31, it no longer bears the price difference, in fact, it has increased by 5400 yuan in disguise.
Not only new energy vehicle companies, but even two-wheeled electric vehicles have also announced price increases ranging from 200 to 1,000 yuan. It seems that the price increase of new energy vehicles is only a matter of time, declaring the defeat of the "waiting party".
Soaring lithium cobalt nickel, under pressure of new energy batteries
The reasons given by the price increase of car companies are unprecedentedly consistent, "raw materials rise". To be precise, it is the soaring prices of lithium, cobalt, nickel, the original core materials of power batteries, which have brought about the rise in battery costs.
A person in charge of a car company said that since the second half of last year, the price of the ningde era power battery has risen twice, as high as 20,000 yuan. The cost of power batteries accounts for about 30% to 40% of the total cost, which has a huge impact.
The power battery company also has some grievances, believing that the increase in the battery is a younger brother in terms of the rise in the price of upstream raw materials.
Specifically, the price of lithium has risen 9 times from 50,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021 to the current 500,000 yuan / ton. From the end of last year to now, lithium hydroxide has grown from 213,000 yuan / ton to 501,000 yuan / ton, less than 300,000 yuan / ton to 568,000 yuan / ton. Affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia, as the world's third largest nickel producer, has seen a sharp rise in nickel prices.
Those upstream companies make a lot of money. Ganfeng Lithium's net profit in January-February this year increased by 3 times year-on-year to 1.4 billion yuan, and its net profit in 2021 also increased by 4 times. Tianqi Lithium also said that it expects lithium concentrate revenue to increase by about 3.66 times year-on-year in January-February this year, and it is expected that the operating income of lithium compounds and derivatives will increase by about 492% year-on-year.
However, in the face of huge fluctuations in the power battery material industry, the Department of Raw Material Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the First Department of Equipment Industry, together with the Price Department of the Development and Reform Commission, the Price Supervision and Inspection and anti-unfair competition bureau of the State Administration of Market Supervision, recently interviewed some lithium salt enterprises, requiring upstream and downstream enterprises in the lithium battery industry chain to strengthen the docking of supply and demand, cooperate to form a long-term and stable strategic cooperation relationship, and jointly guide the rational return of lithium salt prices, ensure market supply, and support the development of the new energy industry.
Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that this year will focus on meeting the production needs of power batteries, moderately accelerate the development progress of domestic lithium, nickel and other resources, and crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding and price gouging.
Many industry insiders said that after 2 months of soaring prices, lithium carbonate prices have now tended to calm down. With the increase in supply, the price may fall in the second quarter, and the rising market may usher in an inflection point.
Buy or not buy? That's a problem
In the new situation, buy a fuel car or buy a tram? Do you buy a car now or wait for a postponement? These old problems are in front of consumers again.
Some consumers said that the oil price is so high now, and the cost of buying fuel vehicles is too high, so it seems that the price increase of new energy vehicles seems to be acceptable.
Zhang Yajia, deputy general manager of the Automotive Industry Research Center of CCID Consulting Co., Ltd., said that the increase in the cost of traditional cars has weakened the impact of new energy vehicle price increases on consumer psychology to a certain extent. However, from the current stage, consumers may not be able to accept that the price of new energy vehicles is significantly higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles of the same level, and if the price continues to rise, it may significantly inhibit market demand.
The secretary general of the Association said 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, and the price of new energy vehicles is also expected to retrace. However, new energy vehicles are not consumer goods such as pork after all, and once they rise, the probability of downward adjustment in a short period of time is not high.
Write at the end
The highest international oil price is close to 130 US dollars / barrel, and recently fell to about 110 US dollars / barrel, floating up and down, but the rise in the price of new energy vehicles has been a fixed trend, in this case, electric vehicles are still fragrant?