Author: Wen Yu, Editor: Xiao ShiMei
On the evening of March 19, Ideal Auto CEO Li wanted to complain about the price increase of power batteries on Weibo, bluntly saying that the cost increase has been very outrageous.
Coincidentally, Musk also publicly complained on Twitter that Tesla and SpaceX are facing huge inflationary pressures in the field of raw materials and logistics.
Prior to this, Tesla had announced three price increases in seven days (March 10, March 15 and March 17), of which the highest price of Model Y has increased by 30,000 yuan. After Tesla, BYD, Xiaopeng, Weima, Nezha Automobile, zero-run cars and so on have followed suit.
Now, the cost pressure faced by new energy vehicles far exceeds the industry's previous expectations.
In 2022, the industry will face a great test.
【Price increase! Receding! 】
The main cost of electric vehicles is in power batteries, accounting for more than 40%.
The main cost of the battery is in the cathode material, accounting for about 40%.
According to the classification of cathode materials, lithium batteries mainly have lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium manganate (LMO), lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and ternary materials (NCM, NCA), and the current power battery is mainly the latter two. The difference between the two is that the former uses lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material, and the latter uses ternary composite materials, in addition to lithium, there are cobalt and nickel.
About 520 tons of lithium carbonate are required per GWh lithium iron phosphate battery, while about 620 tons of lithium carbonate is needed for ternary lithium batteries. Ternary lithium batteries also need nickel and cobalt, taking the current mainstream NCM 811 type as an example, each GWh ternary lithium battery requires 750 tons of nickel, 100 tons of cobalt.
Therefore, if the unit price of lithium carbonate, nickel and cobalt rises by 10,000 yuan, then the cost of each GWh power battery will increase by 5.2 million yuan - 6.2 million yuan, 7.5 million yuan and 1 million yuan.
In 2021, nickel and cobalt rose by 20.47% and 80.59%, respectively, while the price of lithium carbonate soared by 432%. In the context of the sharp rise in raw materials, the cost of power batteries has increased by more than 30% last year.
Entering 2022, the price of raw materials not only has no intention of braking, but has become more intense.
As of mid-March, the domestic price of lithium carbonate rose from 280,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of the year to about 500,000 yuan / ton, nickel prices rose from 155,000 yuan / ton to 260,000 yuan / ton, and cobalt prices rose from 490,000 yuan / ton to 570,000 yuan / ton, up about 220,000 yuan, 110,000 yuan and 80,000 yuan per ton respectively.
This means that since the beginning of this year, just because of the price increase of the three major metals, the material cost per GWh lithium iron phosphate battery has risen by 130 million yuan, and the cost per GWh ternary lithium battery has theoretically risen by more than 200 million.
Taking the average installed capacity of new energy vehicles in China last year as 46KWh, the battery cost of electric vehicles has risen by 6,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan in less than three months this year. If you count the price increase of raw materials since the second half of last year, the cost increase is even higher.
Do you think that's the end of it?
On the last day of last year, the Ministry of Finance and other four departments jointly issued the "Notice on the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in 2022" and the subsidy plan.
The content is as follows:
In 2022, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021, and new energy vehicles that are licensed after December 31 this year will no longer be subsidized by the state.
As a result, pure electric vehicle models with a cruising range of 300 km (inclusive) to 400 km are subsidized by 0.91 million yuan this year, a decrease of 0.39 million yuan over last year; and pure electric vehicle models with a cruising range greater than or equal to 400 km are subsidized by 12,600 yuan, a decrease of 0.54 million yuan over last year. In addition, the subsidy for plug-in hybrid models has also been reduced by 0.2 million yuan compared with last year.
Subsidies combined with raw material price increases, the cost of a new energy vehicle will increase by at least 10,000 yuan in 2022. This means that the theoretical cost increase of an electric vehicle of 100,000 yuan has reached double digits.
【Pass-through? Pay? 】
There must always be people to pay for the rising costs, either the industry eats it or passes it on to the consumer.
Most of the costs brought about by the price increase of raw materials last year were silently undertaken by battery manufacturers, and there was no further transmission to the downstream, but the consequence was that the profit margins of power battery manufacturers were greatly compressed, and even losses occurred.
Among them, Sunwoda's revenue in the third quarter of 2021 was 1 billion yuan, a loss of 250-260 million, and the gross profit margin also fell from 6% in the first half of the year to 1.3%, a decline of 88.81% in the same period; the net profit loss of Fu Neng Technology in the single quarter was 194 million yuan, and the loss was further expanded; the gross profit of Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Penghui Energy Q3 also fell by 59.98% and 34.69% year-on-year, respectively.
The roof leak coincided with the overnight rain, and the crazy expansion of the industry was in urgent need of funds.
How crazy is that?
According to the statistics before the market value observation, by 2025, the capacity planning target of the Ningde era will be close to 600GWh, and the capacity planning of EWELL Lithium Energy, AVIC Lithium Battery and BYD will be close to 300Gwh, 250Gwh and 200Gwh respectively. In the first half of last year, Hive Energy announced its 200GWh capacity target, but the latest news shows that this figure has been raised to 600GWh, which is the third time that the company has raised its global production target for 2025.
In contrast, last year's top ten domestic power battery companies installed a total of only 139GWh.
▲The image is taken from CITIC Securities
According to industry calculations, the average investment amount of lithium battery projects per 1GWh production capacity is about 300 million yuan, and the above projects are tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of investments.
For many companies, such an investment intensity is a serious overdraft.
Taking Sunwoda, which has recently been in the limelight, as an example, in the past year, the company has disclosed 6 foreign investments, with a total amount of 64 billion yuan. As of the end of the third quarter of last year, its total assets were only 37.444 billion yuan, and its net assets were only 8.794 billion yuan.
Therefore, in the face of the continued rise in the cost of raw materials, power battery companies may not have the ability to swallow anymore.
What about car companies?
Harder.
Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Beiqi Blue Valley and most of the domestic car-making forces are still in a state of loss, throwing in dozens of billions of dollars every year. Based on the delivery volume of 100,000 vehicles, if you bear the cost of raw materials and subsidies, it is equivalent to at least a few hundred million or even more than a billion yuan per year, which is obviously unbearable.
To make matters worse, new energy vehicle companies can also make a profit by selling points, the most typical of which is Tesla. In the second quarter of last year, the company's points sales revenue reached $354 million, accounting for one-third of the net profit for the current period.
In 2022, the credits of new energy vehicles have plummeted, from the highest 3,000 yuan last year to the current 500-800 yuan, which means that this part of the revenue of new energy vehicle companies will be greatly discounted, further weakening the profitability of enterprises.
In the non-seller's market, volume and price can not be combined, in the face of upstream price increases and subsidy decline of the two sides of the attack, if the industry has been unable to make concessions in profits, the result can only be to pass the cost to the consumer terminal.
In fact, before this round of group price increases, new energy vehicles have begun to raise prices in the local area.
Tesla raised the price of the Model 3 and Model Y rear-wheel drive versions by 10,000 yuan and 21,000 yuan respectively on the day of the release of the subsidy decline policy.
Before Tesla, FAW-Volkswagen has made it clear that it will raise the price of two pure electric models, ID.6 CROZZ and ID.4 CROZZ, by 5400 yuan. According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of the year, more than 50 new energy vehicles have announced price increases, and BYD, Xiaopeng, Weilai, Weima, Nezha Automobile, Zero-run Cars and other leading car-making forces are among them.
On March 10, March 15, and March 17, Tesla raised prices three times in a row in seven days, forming a symbolic signal. Coupled with Li Xiang's public statement, it can be basically confirmed that the new costs brought about by the price increase of upstream raw materials this year have begun to shift downward in a large area.
Will consumers pay?
It's also hard.
According to the latest data from the Association, in January 2022, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China were 347,000 units, a decrease of 27% month-on-month; in February, the downward trend continued, and retail sales were only 272,000 units, down 22.6% month-on-month. Among them, there are many impacts of the Spring Festival holiday, but the negative impact of price increases is also a force that cannot be ignored.
▲The picture is taken from Soochow Securities
It is also worth noting that the penetration of domestic electric vehicles is "dumbbell" in the price point, that is, models of 0-50,000 yuan and 15-30 million yuan are the fastest price bands in the electrification process.
According to data from Soochow Securities, the penetration rate of electric vehicles below 50,000 yuan last year has increased to 68%, and the penetration rate of 150,000-300,000 yuan is also about 20%. In contrast, the penetration rate of the price band of 50,000-150,000 yuan is only 7%, which is the direction of key breakthroughs in the future. The potential consumer group at this target price point is the most cost-effective, and the price sensitivity is higher, which will further amplify the negative effect of price increases.
The development of new energy vehicles is related to China's energy transformation and the promotion of the "double carbon strategy", which is not only an economic account, but also a political issue.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, on March 18, the Department of Raw Material Industry and the First Department of Equipment Industry jointly held a symposium on the operation of the lithium industry and the price increase of upstream materials for power batteries.
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.
This scene is familiar.
In June last year, under the background of the runaway price of silicon materials, the relevant departments also organized a photovoltaic industry symposium to try to cool down the upstream. Since then, the price of silicon has indeed shown a certain correction, but by the fourth quarter, the price is still out of control.
Historical experience shows that under the absolute contradiction between market supply and demand, it is difficult to make substantial changes to the overall situation through policy intervention. If we want to solve the problem of price increases without compressing demand, we must ultimately rely on the upstream to further release the supply, but the water cannot quench the near thirst.
In 2022, the entire new energy vehicle industry chain is difficult!
disclaimer
This article involves the content of listed companies, which is the author's personal analysis and judgment based on the information publicly disclosed by listed companies in accordance with their statutory obligations (including but not limited to temporary announcements, periodic reports and official interactive platforms, etc.); the information or opinions in this article do not constitute any investment or other business advice, and Market Value Watch does not assume any responsibility for any action arising from the adoption of this article.
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