A few days ago, NIO announced that it will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products from May 10, 2022. Among them, the starting price of ES8, ES6 and EC6 versions of the model was raised by 10,000 yuan. In terms of BaaS battery rental price, the long-endurance battery pack battery rental service fee is adjusted from 1480 yuan / month to 1680 yuan / month.
The price increase of new energy vehicles has become more and more intense.
The price of raw materials has continued to rise sharply, and new energy vehicles have risen in price
In addition to the above car companies, as of now, nearly 20 car companies such as Great Wall Euler, SAIC-GM-Wuling, BYD, Xiaopeng, Nezha, Geely Geometry, Zero Run, Dongfeng Lantu, Changan New Energy and so on have announced price increases. It is worth mentioning that in the statement of the car company official price increase, it was mentioned that the reason for the price increase was affected by factors such as the continuous sharp rise in the price of raw materials such as batteries and chips.
Just in March, Tesla just made several price adjustments in the United States and The Chinese market. Especially from March 10 to March 17, the price of products in the Chinese market was raised three times in just 8 days, and the price increase was 15,060 yuan to 30,000 yuan. Tesla said that whether the price increase will continue in the future is still unknown.
In fact, the entire new energy automobile industry is rising prices, the direct reason is the rise in upstream raw material prices, including lithium, nickel, cobalt and other metals and chemical materials, coupled with the epidemic caused by the rise in logistics and transportation costs, as well as the international situation caused by the supply chain is unstable, resulting in multiple price increases.
The mismatch between supply and demand has boosted the surge in lithium resources, and the short-term gap is difficult to make up
At present, electric vehicles on the market mainly use ternary lithium batteries, or lithium iron phosphate batteries. No matter what kind of battery, in the end, it is inseparable from lithium ore.
In August 2021, the battery-grade lithium carbonate quotation was around 100,000 yuan / ton, to nearly 500,000 yuan / ton today, half a year later, the increase was as high as 400%. If calculated from 50,000 yuan / ton in early 2021, the increase has reached 900%, but it still shows a trend of short supply. It took a month for the domestic price of battery-grade lithium carbonate to rise from 300,000 yuan / ton in January to 400,000 yuan / ton, while it took only about 20 days to rise from 400,000 yuan / ton to 500,000 yuan / ton.
At the beginning of January this year, the price of lun nickel was $20,771 per ton. Today (April 13), this price has risen to $32,890 per ton, more than three months, an increase of 58.34%.
It is estimated that the unit price of lithium carbonate increases by 100,000 yuan per price, and the cost per GWh of power batteries increases by about 52 million yuan to 62 million yuan. For every 10,000 yuan / metal ton of nickel, the cost of ternary lithium batteries per GWh increases by about 5 million yuan - 7.5 million yuan. For every 10,000 yuan / ton increase in the unit price of cobalt, the cost of ternary lithium batteries per GWh increases by about 1 million yuan - 4 million yuan.
In addition, the madness of lithium carbonate occurs not only on the raw material supply side, but also in the field of waste power battery recycling. Previously, according to CCTV, the current price of decommissioned batteries has exceeded that of new goods. Previously, at the lowest time, the recovery price of power batteries was only 60% compared with new goods, and now there has been a price inversion phenomenon, with a discount coefficient of more than 100%, and even "120% has been dared to shout", "second-hand goods" are more expensive than new goods.
The mismatch between supply and demand is the core reason for the increase in the price of lithium resources, lithium mining plants have limited production capacity after experiencing the trough of the last cycle, and new energy vehicles have driven the demand for lithium batteries to break out in the past two years. 80% of the world's lithium mineral energy is distributed overseas, especially in Australia, South America and other regions, and the expansion cycle is on average 3-5 years, and it is difficult to make up for the gap between supply and demand in the short term.
The increment of new energy vehicles continues to improve, and the cost of diluted price increases is still very "fragrant"
Although a number of car companies announced price increases, the sales of new energy vehicles have continued to rise. Since April, a number of new energy vehicle companies have released sales data for March and the first quarter, and many car companies have set new highs.
On April 2, Tesla announced the production and sales in the first quarter of 2022, with production of 305407 units in the first three months of this year, and global deliveries reaching 310048 units, an increase of 67.7% year-on-year and 0.5% month-on-month. On April 5, BYD released a production and sales express report, selling a total of 286,000 new energy vehicles in the first quarter, a sharp increase of 423% year-on-year and 7.6% month-on-month.
In addition, the cumulative sales of new car-making forces such as Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Nezha exceeded 30,000 units in the first quarter. Among them, the cumulative delivery volume of Xiaopeng Automobile was 34,561 units, an increase of 159% year-on-year; the cumulative delivery of new cars by Ideal Automobile was 31,716 units, an increase of 152% year-on-year; and the cumulative delivery volume of Nezha Automobile was 30,200 units, an increase of 305% year-on-year.
As the international oil price has soared from $60 to about $100 in the past six months, the domestic gasoline price has also risen steadily, bringing a considerable economic burden to the owners of fuel vehicles. On April 13, the latest price of Shandong No. 92 gasoline was 8.72 yuan per liter. According to the general car 50 liters of fuel per tank, it costs 436 yuan to fill a tank of oil, which costs about 6 to 7 cents per kilometer on average. A mainstream electric car costs less than 1 cent per kilometer. The cost performance of new energy vehicles is highlighted, and after diluting the cost increase, it is still very "fragrant".
The "key" to the solution lies in the release of production capacity, and the price increase is ultimately paid by consumers
On the one hand, the sales of new energy vehicles continue to improve, and on the other hand, the constraints caused by the mismatch between supply and demand of upstream resources such as lithium, nickel and cobalt are on the other hand. How to dredge this bottleneck has become a hot topic in the industry.
As early as during the two sessions this year, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of the global battery "giant" Ningde Era, submitted a proposal on "taking effective measures as soon as possible to promote the supply and price stability of domestic lithium resources". He said: "The current supply and demand situation of lithium resources is grim, and the development of the industry is facing challenges. We should accelerate the exploration and development of domestic lithium resources to ensure the safety of the supply chain, and at the same time strengthen independent innovation and scientific and technological research, and improve the level of efficient utilization of resource recycling. ”
The soaring rise of lithium carbonate has aroused great concern from relevant departments. On March 16, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly stated that it would crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding of lithium, nickel and other resources, and raised prices, and interviewed some lithium salt companies to guide lithium salt companies to directly ship to the midstream, "I hope everyone will rise and slow down."
Affected by supervision, the current price of lithium carbonate has fallen below the mark of 500,000 yuan / ton. According to data released by the business agency, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate on April 13 was 482,000 to 500,000 per ton.
All indications are that the price of lithium ore has reached a high level, the risk of speculation is extremely high, and the relationship between supply and demand has begun to restructure. However, to solve the contradiction of demand mismatch, we must wait for the release of lithium ore capacity in the medium term.
This means that the gap in lithium is difficult to solve in the short term, and car companies still need to endure the constraints from battery prices and supply. However, strong purchases are still climbing, and in the end, it is the consumers who pay for it.
Source: Liu Mingming, poster news editor of the public network, synthesized from the Economic Daily, Securities Daily, and Daily Economic News