Original title: Once the electricity rose by more than 300 yuan, the price increase of new energy vehicles was listed
Recently, the price increase of domestic new energy vehicles has attracted market attention, mainly due to the soaring price of lithium carbonate, a raw material for power batteries. At the beginning of 2021, the price of lithium carbonate is less than 50,000 yuan / ton. However, by the beginning of 2022, the price rose to about 250,000 yuan / ton; now in the past quarter, it has exceeded 500,000 yuan / ton. Compared with the price in the lowest valley period, this increased by more than 10 times, so that a number of new energy automobile companies felt the pressure of cost and started price adjustments.
New energy vehicle companies have raised prices one after another, and the cost pressure has been transmitted to the consumer side
According to the research of Tianfeng Securities, if the impact of bargaining power, procurement volume, etc. on the actual procurement cost is considered, and the superimposed performance technology progress is hedged with the cost increase, the increase in raw material prices is transmitted to the cost increase of lithium batteries by about 20%-25%.
Since January, nearly 20 new energy vehicle companies have announced price increases, involving nearly 40 models, ranging from 2,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan. Since the end of 2021, Tesla has experienced several rounds of price increases, and even in March there were two consecutive upward price increases. Among them, the Model 3 and Model Y models have different degrees of price increases, the amount is between 14,000 and 28,000. Domestic brands also issued price increase notices in March, and Xiaopeng has raised prices for the second time this year, with the increase of 10,000-20,000 yuan for each model. BYD has a smaller increase, generally around 3,000-6,000 yuan, and the price of many new energy models of other brands such as Ideal, Nezha, Zero Run, and Wuling has risen by different margins. In general, the price increase of Ternary and lithium iron phosphate battery models is very high, and the larger the battery capacity, the more the price rises.
*The chart above is sorted by average electrical gain from high to low per kilowatt-hour.
At present, there are also several car companies that have not yet increased their prices, including Weilai and Extreme Krypton. Krypton has announced that it will announce price increases on April 30, which will be implemented on May 1. Although Weilai has always claimed that it has not yet decided whether to increase the price, according to the current raw material price situation, the price increase of Weilai is almost certain, the difference is that it will rise now, or wait until the release of the 2022 ES8, ES6 and EC6 in late May.
Raw material price increases are exaggerated Car executives responded with voices
Regarding the soaring price of raw materials for power batteries, many car executives have spoken out for this. Tesla CEO Musk previously said at the 2021 annual general meeting, "Our goal is to make the price of the car as cheap as possible." However, our supply chain is under enormous cost pressure, so we have to temporarily raise the price of our cars. Subsequently, Tesla's full range of models ushered in continuous price adjustments around the world.
Li Bin, CEO of WEIO, said on the fourth quarter of 2021 earnings call that the price increase of lithium carbonate this year has been very exaggerated, and it has been more disturbed by speculative factors in addition to supply and demand. He called on upstream raw material manufacturers to start from the long-term interests of the entire industry and return prices to rationality.
Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang posted on Weibo on March 19 that the price increase of this round of new energy vehicles is mainly due to "the increase in battery costs is very outrageous." On March 23, Ideal Auto announced that it will adjust the selling price of Ideal ONE from April 1, 2022, due to the continuous sharp rise in upstream raw materials, with an increase of 11,800 yuan.
According to the data, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years. The retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2021 will reach 14.8%, which is expected to increase to 22% in 2022. Therefore, what kind of impact the increase in vehicle prices brought about by this round of raw material prices in the future of new energy vehicle sales needs to be further observed.
Source: China Net