Perhaps it was Tesla's lit lead that aroused the "resonance" of the brothers. Recently, the price increase of new energy vehicles has become an unstoppable trend.
According to market research data, in the past 100 days in 2022, 40 new energy models have announced price increases. In the past, people have been accustomed to Tesla's drop and fall, and there is always a fluke mentality, thinking that the cake of new energy vehicles can wait and so on. However, now, Tesla has continuously counter-killed, and has officially announced three price adjustments in a week. A number of new energy brands have "followed".
For a time, people fell into a kind of doubt: should new energy vehicles rush to increase prices, whether they are collectively kidnapping users, or not rising?
Igniter
It is not an exaggeration to say that Tesla is the igniter of this round of new energy price increases.
Just on April 7, Tesla's official website in the United States once again appeared price increase information: some Model 3 models raised the price by at least $1,000. Specifically, the Model3 long-endurance version was raised by $1,500 to $55,990; the high-performance version was raised by $1,000 to $62,990.
Prior to this, from March 10 to 17, about a week, Tesla's Chinese market raised the price of its products three times, and the price increase was 10,000-30,000 yuan.
Among them, on March 10, Tesla announced that it would adjust the price of some Model 3 and Model Y models in the Chinese market, with a price increase of 10,000 yuan; after 5 days, it opened its mouth again. On the basis of the previous price increase, the price of the above two models was raised by 18,000-20,000 yuan; on March 17, ModelY rose three times in a row. Tesla separately raised the price of the Model Y rear-wheel drive version of the model, with a price increase of 15,060 yuan. The reasons are all due to cost pressures.
In the future, whether it will continue to raise the price, Tesla gave the answer is "do not know".
Under the ignition of Tesla, a number of domestic new energy vehicle brands have completely formed a trend of price increases. At this point, Tesla's price increase has also changed from an "isolated case" to a "group event". The entire new energy automobile industry has set off a wave of "big fanfare" price increases.
On April 6, Chery New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. announced that it will raise the price of some models by 2,900-5,000 yuan, and the price adjustment will take effect from 00:00 on April 7.
Coincidentally, Jihu Automobile also issued an announcement on the same day, deciding to make certain price adjustments for all models of the Jihu brand from May 1, 2022, and the specific adjustment plan will be announced before April 30, 2022.
Previously, Extreme Kr Automobile also issued an announcement, saying that it will increase prices from May 1, and the specific price increase plan will be announced before April 30; SAIC Roewe announced that it will adjust the official guidance price of some models of its Roewe i6MAXEV and Roewe Ei5 models from 00:00 on May 1, with the price increase of 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan; Wuling Hongguang also announced a price increase of between 4,000 yuan and 8,000 yuan.
Time to go back further, the Great Wall Euler, Xiaopeng, BYD, BAIC, Eian, Ideal ONE, Nezha, Geely Geometry, Zero Run, Dongfeng Lantu, Changan New Energy and other models have joined the army of price increases, statistics show that nearly 20 car companies, 40 models have announced price increases.
For consumers, this can only be described by four words: "unacceptable". On social networks, He traveled auto found that some consumers said bluntly: "This wave of rising tide feels like a collective kidnapping of users and taking advantage of the fire." Even Weilai, which announced that it would not increase its price for the time being, has been criticized because it wants to go to the high-end and it is already "expensive enough".
A phenomenon worth speculating about is that under the impact of such a tide of price increases, the sales of new energy vehicles do not seem to have been affected. The production and sales of "Igniter" Tesla in the first quarter of 2022 show that Tesla's production in the first three months of this year was 305407 units, and the global delivery volume reached 310048 units, an increase of 67.7% year-on-year and 0.5% month-on-month.
Among domestic brands, BYD sold a total of 286,000 new energy vehicles in the quarter, a substantial increase of 423% year-on-year and 7.6% month-on-month; Xiaopeng Automobile's cumulative delivery volume of 34,561 units, an increase of 159% year-on-year; Ideal Automobile's cumulative delivery of 31,716 new vehicles in the same period, an increase of 152% year-on-year; Nezha Automobile's cumulative delivery volume in the first quarter was 30,200 units, an increase of 305% year-on-year; WEILAI's cumulative delivery of 25,768 intelligent electric vehicles, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year, Achieved 8 consecutive quarters of positive growth.
Some institutions have made judgments on the increase in the price of new energy vehicles, and their views are generally the same. In the words of CITIC Securities' research, it is that the price of new cars is not the primary factor affecting the demand for new energy vehicles, and from the perspective of full life cycle costs, new energy vehicles still have huge advantages over fuel vehicles, especially the recent sharp rise in oil prices, highlighting the cost advantages of new energy vehicles.
Perhaps this is the current status quo of the new energy vehicle market, but such an analysis coupled with such a situation will only make it more difficult for users to digest emotionally. In a word: analyzed the market, looked at the demand, and fixed the user.
No rise, no?
In the recent 2021 earnings conference call, some remarks by Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, may explain the current round of price increases, of course, there are also voices that they are paving the way for future price increases.
Li Bin said that 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 to share the pressure of rising costs. However, at present, Weilai has no plan to increase prices, and will then judge whether to adjust the price strategy according to cost changes such as raw material prices and market conditions.
In fact, for this round of price increases, almost all car companies have blamed the rise in raw material prices, which is also an objective fact. Industry insiders said that lithium, nickel, cobalt and other metals and chemical materials rose, logistics and transportation costs rose, and the international situation led to unstable supply chain expectations, and the most immediate solution to the rise in upstream raw materials is to increase prices. This, in turn, forms an irreversible collective trend.
In addition, factors such as subsidies have also had a certain impact on the price of the new energy vehicle market. From a policy point of view, it has the same meaning for new energy vehicles and new energy vehicle users. Both buyers and sellers must accept the step of the new energy industry gradually taking off the cloak of policy protection, which is also a compulsory course in the growth process of the industry.
Another phenomenon is also worth thinking about. In this context, the survival of low-cost electric vehicles may become more and more elusive, and at present, it may be the darkest moment of low-cost electric vehicles. Factors such as subsidies decline, rising raw material prices, and chip shortages "treat low-end models equally", and the pressure brought by rising costs to them is more obvious.
The low price represents the cruel fact that Euler Black Cat faces is that after the sharp rise in raw material prices in 2022, the loss of a single unit exceeded 10,000 yuan. From this point of view, it seems that the price increase of low-priced cars is better understood, after all, opening the door to do business, no one wants to lose money. But there is another dilemma for these low-priced models - the market has always been that the selling point is low prices, and once the price is raised, it means the loss of users. This is the dilemma of low-priced brands.
However, there is an indisputable fact that new energy vehicles have become the main theme of the development of the global automotive market, and China is the top priority of this market. According to the data, the sales volume of new energy passenger cars in the Chinese market in 2021 was 2.9398 million units, accounting for 45% of the global new energy passenger car market share, with sales volume increasing by 156.7% year-on-year and retail penetration reaching 14.8%.
According to the Association of Passenger Vehicles, China's new energy passenger car sales will be 5.5 million in 2022, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will reach 25%, and micro-electric vehicles are an important part of the new energy industry.
In the future, whether from the perspective of user demand, or the decline of policy subsidies and the rise in raw material prices, the price increase of new energy vehicles will not recede in a short period of time. According to Morgan Stanley's previous predictions, the rise in nickel prices may lead to an increase in the cost of electric vehicle bicycles by $1,000.
The cruelty of the market may lie in this, high-end brands have the abacus of high-end brands, and low-end brands have the pain of low-end brands. There will always be murder behind the opportunity, and no one will give up this cake.
The price increase may just be that the car companies are making a living for themselves. And consumers who have "exposed" their purchasing power, are they still willing to pay willingly?