It is difficult to pick up new energy vehicles have encountered "blockages"

"My new energy vehicle indicator is valid for 12 months, but it will take 6-7 months just to wait for the car to be picked up." Zhang Kun, who lives in Beijing's Chaoyang district, has recently been a little anxious about buying a car. His troubles with thousands of consumers hint that the new energy vehicles that have been soaring all the way seem to have encountered some "blockages".

On the one hand, since entering 2022, due to the superposition of factors such as subsidy decline and rising raw material prices, many companies have "queued" up the sales price of new energy vehicles.

According to incomplete statistics, nearly two-thirds of the top 30 new energy vehicle models sold last year have announced price increases this year. This wave of collective price increases has caused many consumers and industry insiders to worry about the development of the new energy automobile industry.

On the other hand, from 2021 onwards, due to the shortage of chips around the world, the automobile market, especially the delivery of new energy vehicles, has been delayed from time to time.

According to the "Domestic Automobile Consumption Rights Protection Public Opinion Research Report (2021)" jointly released by the Beijing Sunshine Consumption Big Data Research Institute and the Consumer Protection Law Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics, "failure to deliver on time" has been juxtaposed with quality problems, service problems and false publicity, and has become a common problem in domestic automobile consumer rights protection.

New energy vehicles are "rising", and the coordination of the industrial chain still needs to go hand in hand

"From the third quarter of last year to this year, the price of raw materials upstream of power batteries rose rapidly, resulting in the entire new energy vehicle industry chain having to share the pressure of rising costs." Recently, in the 2021 Q4 earnings conference call of Weilai, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, said that at present, Weilai has no plan to increase prices, and then it will judge whether to adjust the price strategy according to cost changes such as raw material prices and market conditions.

Public data shows that NIO delivered a total of 9,985 smart electric vehicles in March, an increase of 37.6% year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2022, NIO delivered a total of 25,768 smart electric vehicles, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year, achieving positive growth for 8 consecutive quarters. Among them, THENET's intelligent electric flagship sedan ET7 has begun delivery on March 28, and 163 units have been delivered as of March 31.

"Weilai not only has stable sales, but more importantly, considering that the average selling price of WEIlai's products is more than 420,000 yuan, the positioning and image of its high-end smart electric vehicle brand continue to be consolidated." Some analysts believe that Wei's focus on the market share of high-end new energy vehicles, and its products are relatively easy to digest the pressure of rising costs.

Cost pressure is not only from power batteries, chips that affect the level of intelligence of automobiles, aluminum, copper and other bulk commodities, almost all of which are facing pressure to increase prices. Especially the car chip, which is considered to be the "brain nerve" of smart electric vehicles, and whether its supply chain is smooth or not affects the hearts of almost all practitioners.

Whether it is the 2022 ES8, ES6 and EC6 with the latest smart cockpit hardware expected to be released in late May, or the ES7, the first SUV model born on NIO's second-generation technology platform NT2, behind NIO's series of product offensives, automotive chips play an indispensable and important role.

"We use more than 1,000 chips per car, and about 10 percent of them have tight supply problems." For example, Li Bin said that last year, the company had some gross profit losses because of the shortage of automotive chip supply and price increases.

It is understood that Weilai's vehicle gross profit margin target this year is set at 18%-20%. Li Bin revealed that Weilai has long-term and stable strategic cooperation with high-end chip suppliers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, but there are still "blockages" in the supply chain of some basic chips. He said that the overall production capacity of the vehicle will remain stable this year, but the volatility of the supply chain, especially the basic chip supply chain, will have a greater impact on the new energy automobile industry.

According to CICC's statistics, the current cost increase of new energy vehicles is 10%-20%, and the cost of bicycles will increase by about 10,000 yuan. Obviously, this is by no means a small amount for a small electric car that would otherwise be cheaper.

"The price of raw materials for power batteries has been rising for a year, and the cost and price of some new energy models have been upside down, basically selling one to lose one." An insider of a car company who did not want to be named told reporters that in this case, the price increase of new energy vehicles is an inevitable trend.

"If the price increase exceeds the degree that consumers can afford, it is very likely that the production and sales of new energy vehicles will decline two years ago, which will affect the healthy development of new energy vehicles on the mainland." Some industry analysts are worried that this will have a huge negative impact on the industry's gear shift after the subsidy policy has declined. Considering that the price of new energy vehicles is originally higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles of the same level, this concern is not unfounded.

"In order to solve the current problem of rising raw material prices, in addition to moderately accelerating the development progress of domestic lithium, nickel and other energy metal resources, and helping domestic enterprises to steadily open up foreign raw material supply channels, it is also necessary to strengthen the upstream and downstream supply and demand docking of the new energy vehicle industry chain." The above experts said that the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain should work together to "walk in tandem" and share the cost increase brought about by the price increase of raw materials. Otherwise, relying solely on a certain link of the industrial chain to absorb all the upward pressure, the whole industrial chain will eventually have a winner.

Cracking the "difficulty of picking up the car", car companies should not let consumers pay

The shortage of chips and the rise in the price of battery raw materials have also led to repeated consumer complaints about the delayed delivery of new energy vehicles.

"The rise in the cost of batteries and other costs directly leads to a decline in the profits of car companies, and some car companies may wait for the price of raw materials to fall by lengthening the delivery cycle." Some industry experts said that another major reason for the delay in delivery of car companies is the shortage of car chips. There are predictions that the automotive chip supply chain will return to normal levels in the third quarter of this year.

However, if automakers delay delivery in anticipation of reducing costs, they are suspected of passing on the company's own business risks to consumers. There are consumer rights and interests protection experts who have advocated that consumers sign a contract with the enterprise when purchasing a car, and should stipulate in the contract that the car company should bear the liability for breach of contract when the delivery of the vehicle is delayed. In addition, the relevant regulatory authorities should also pay attention to the phenomenon of delayed delivery of car companies and take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

"Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles are in the development stage. Some technical standards and industry standardization are not yet mature, and relevant policies are also in the process of gradual improvement. Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society and a specially invited researcher of the Consumer Protection Law Research Center of the University of International Business and Economics, said that the relevant departments should strengthen the supervision of consumer feedback prominent problems such as disguised mark-ups, hidden charges, compulsory tying, false publicity, and vehicle safety in the field of automobile sales, and take effective measures to ensure market order and crack down on illegal acts, so as to guide and regulate the healthy development of the new energy vehicle industry.

"Whether it is a vehicle company or an automobile sales company, it is necessary to treat consumers with integrity, not to force bundle sales, not to do false publicity, to fulfill promises in good faith, and to eliminate bullying, deception and misleading, and illegal charges." At the same time, consumers should also enhance their awareness of self-protection. Chen Yinjiang reminded that consumers should pay attention to retaining relevant vouchers for car purchase and maintenance, and pay special attention to the verbal commitments of merchants about returning car purchase deposits and insurance deposits.

He suggested that consumers should pay attention to retaining deposits or deposit receipts during the car purchase process, recording the verbal commitments of merchants when necessary, and actively striving to sign a paper deposit or deposit refund agreement.

According to the analysis of CICC, the impact of battery price increases has landed, and the initial bearishness formed by car companies following up on price adjustments has basically been exhausted. It is expected that the continued high prosperity of the follow-up new energy will further alleviate market concerns, so the judgment of "the annual sales of China's new energy vehicle market will exceed 5 million in 2022" will remain unchanged.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, reminded that although the rebound of the new crown pneumonia epidemic has affected people's lives a lot, and many automobile companies have also felt difficult, under the worldwide situation of "lack of core and short lithium", the status of China's passenger car market in the world has been greatly improved, setting a new high. "In particular, the market share of China's new energy vehicles has recently accounted for 65% of the global market."

He told reporters that in 2020, the proportion of China's auto market sales in global auto sales rebounded to 32%, remaining at 32% in 2021, while in January-February 2022, this proportion rose to 36%.

Cui Dongshu believes that analyzing the prospects of China's new energy vehicle market should not only see the strong purchasing power of consumers, but also see that the market is more and more recognized by new energy vehicles, and has a certain tolerance for the price increase of new energy vehicle products. He also predicted that the current rise in raw material prices is unsustainable and will eventually return to rational market pricing. "I believe that the new energy vehicle sales data in March will give everyone a surprise, and we also believe that China's new energy vehicles will still have a better market performance this year."

Source: China Youth Daily