Jack Welch, former chairman of GE, said in The Nature of Business that companies usually lay the groundwork for a lot of strategic conversations before changing product pricing, and finally ask:
Why don't we take a test?
If this scenario is applied to China's new energy vehicle market, the first round of price increase testing at the beginning of the year is not bad. In the case of subsidies declining and some car companies increasing prices by thousands of yuan, according to the statistics of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in February were 272,000 units, an increase of 180.5% year-on-year.
Now the second round of price increases is coming. Since March, a number of new energy vehicle companies have raised the price of models, the latest is SAIC-GM-Wuling, which has increased prices by 4,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan from the 24th, involving Hongguang MINIEV series models, NanoEV models, and Baojun KiWi EV models.
According to our incomplete statistics, more than 16 brands and more than 50 new energy models have increased in price this year, and related models account for nearly 70% of the industry's sales. Shenwan Hongyuan Research Institute weighted calculations, these models on average increase of more than 6%, the amount of more than 10,000 yuan. Among them, the price of pure electric models increased by 5% to 12%, and plug-in hybrid models rose by 2%-5%.
The most daring to rise is Tesla, which has adjusted the price three times, and different models have risen by 14,000 to 30,000 yuan. Other brands with price increases include BYD, Ideal, Xiaopeng, GAC Aean, WM, Euler, Nezha, and SAIC Roewe. Zheshang Securities said that "the price increase of new energy vehicles has formed a comprehensive diffusion in the industry.".
The reason for the price adjustment is basically the sharp increase in the price of raw materials.
Since the third quarter of last year, lithium ore, one of the most critical raw materials for power batteries, once touched a high of 500,000 yuan / ton, and doubled in less than three months. The products of one factory are the raw materials of another factory, and after the price increase of lithium ore, battery companies also raise prices to pass on cost pressure. The agency estimates that the average price increase of power battery packs is 10% to 20%, which is expected to bring 4 to 6 percentage points of cost increase to the cost of pure electric models.
But it is not only the battery industry chain that conducts cost pressure.
Aluminum, steel, chemical plastics, glass and other products used in automobile structures and interiors, as well as the general increase in the price of raw materials in their upstream, have further aggravated the cost pressure of car companies. For example, the price of steel and aluminum has risen by more than 10% this year, and the soda ash and natural gas used in glassmaking will rise unilaterally in 2021, with soda ash rising by more than 70% and natural gas rising even more. Industry leader Fuyao Glass last year's gross profit margin fell by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year.
In addition, according to the research of Huachuang Securities, copper, cold-rolled plate, rubber and other automotive raw materials also rose by 36%, 34% and 18% respectively from the third quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2021. Considering that bulk commodities usually use long-term price, go through international transportation, customs declaration and other trade links in the middle, and then transmit to the automakers by parts companies, the upstream price increase often has a 1-3 month delay. Catching up with some emergencies at home and abroad, the production rhythm of the industrial chain has been affected, and various pressures have been concentrated.
During this period, fuel vehicles also encountered cost pressures. According to data from the China Automobile Industry Circulation Association, the average monthly retail discount rate of the overall domestic automobile market in 2020 will remain above 12%. At the beginning of 2021, the discount rate of 11.6% can be maintained, and at the end of the year, it will only be discounted by 7.8%, which will significantly narrow the discount.
But the price adjustment of fuel vehicles is usually not in the news. This is not because the price adjustment range is small - the discount rate of luxury cars at the beginning of 21 years is 12.7%, and the discount rate at the end of the year is 8.4% - 436,500 naked cars after the 500,000 car discount at the beginning of the year, and it may be 458,000 at the end of the year, and the price adjustment range is not low. It is that the electric vehicle itself is more topical, and manufacturers mostly use the direct sales base price sales model, there is no middleman to earn the difference, for consumers, the mentality may be more complicated than the original psychological price to bargain with traditional car dealer dealers (4S stores).
Behind this also reflects that electric vehicles are improving the industry's old diseases at the same time, because the "seniority" is still insufficient, the capacity scale effect is beginning to take shape, and the defense ability against the main materials and cyclical fluctuations of the industry is not as good as that of traditional car companies with annual output of millions or even tens of millions of units.
The impact of the second round of price increases on sales may take some time to be clear, and the negative impact of curbing consumption may be offset by the historically low inventory of the industry under the background of chip shortage, the current situation that the supply of popular cars is in short supply, and the international oil price has remained high in recent months, which will also affect consumers' choice of oil vehicles.
At present, only Weilai, among the mainstream electric vehicle brands, has not raised prices this year. (Gong Fangyi)