Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, wrote the "first remarks" for the April 2022 issue of Automotive Magazine:
Since the beginning of 2022, a new thing has happened in the automotive industry: new energy vehicles have appeared two rounds of price increases, many automobile companies have raised sales prices, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, and there are a number of prices on the road, which can be described as "rising tide". Even in the year when the automobile market is growing rapidly, there has never been such a large-scale price increase, not to mention that the mainland automobile market has gradually entered the era of stock. Is such a price increase not afraid of consumer disapproval?
In the past two years, the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the tight supply of chips have made the automotive industry feel pressure, and the current market has also shown signs of insufficient momentum in automobile consumption, although the industry believes that this year should grow, but it still faces many difficulties in completing the annual target task. At this time, the price increase must have a "demon". Abnormal lithium material prices have attracted attention from all parties.
It is reported that the battery system is the component with the highest cost in new energy vehicles, and its cost accounts for nearly 40%, so controlling the cost of battery is of great significance for car companies to reduce the price of electric vehicles.
Lithium battery raw materials - lithium carbonate prices soared
Source: Flush iFinD
In the past two years, the price of lithium carbonate, the key material used in lithium batteries, has soared. In two years, the spot price of lithium carbonate per ton has risen from about 40,000 to about 480,000 at present, an increase of more than ten times.
Lithium battery raw material - lithium hydroxide prices soared
The price of lithium hydroxide, another raw material for lithium batteries, is also soaring. In mid-2020, the price of lithium hydroxide is about 50,000 yuan / ton, and so far the price is close to about 480,000 / ton, and the price of lithium hydroxide has risen nearly 10 times.
As the price of lithium battery raw materials continues to rise, a number of new energy vehicle companies announced the price increase of their cars. Among them, Tesla, Nezha, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Roewe, Euler, Weima, FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen, BYD, Chery New Energy and other car companies have successively released price increase information in March this year in order to alleviate cost pressure.
The strong demand for new energy markets, coupled with the impact of the epidemic and the Russian-Ukrainian incident, has balanced the supply and demand of the lithium raw materials market, further promoting the price of lithium batteries and new energy vehicles. Yin persimmon financial reporter believes that new energy vehicles are an excellent opportunity for the mainland to achieve overtaking in the automotive industry, one of the ways to get rid of oil dependence, and it is also an integral part of achieving the goal of "carbon neutrality" as soon as possible. In order for new energy vehicles to be healthy and sustainable development, in the face of this "demon price", it is time to manage!