The price increase of new energy vehicles will be late, but it will not be absent, and the rise in raw material prices superimposed on the impact of the epidemic on automobile production, so Weilai is forced to increase prices.
The author | Zhao Liguang
The production | the forefront of the Internet
"When you think things can't get any worse, reality will always tell you that it can get worse." This sentence was verified in the development process of NIO.
Since the establishment of NIO: financing difficulties, spontaneous combustion of vehicles, ES8 recall, team turmoil... For a new car company, the worst that can happen happens.
However, WEILAI Automobile has not gotten better after experiencing a trough, and on April 9, WEILAI Automobile said on its official APP that since March, due to the impact of the epidemic, the company's supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production one after another and have not yet recovered. Affected by this, WEILAI's vehicle production has been suspended. Due to the above reasons, many users' vehicles will be delayed in the near future.
After announcing the suspension of production, Weilai Automobile announced that due to the price increase of raw materials too fiercely, the price of the whole vehicle, the rental price of BaaS batteries, etc. were forced to rise; and even some broke the news that due to the serious epidemic in Shanghai and the tight supply of daily necessities, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai in Shanghai, exchanged green onions for salt in the WeChat group.
1. The Embattled "Weilai"
The car chain is long and complex, making a Weilai car requires thousands of chips, tens of thousands of parts, and chips and parts are distributed in Shanghai, Jilin, Jiangsu and other places, if you can not guarantee normal supply, it will naturally affect automobile production.
Not long ago, Weilai announced that due to the epidemic, the supply chain was out of stock and the production of complete vehicles was suspended. Weilai CEO Li Bin replied to users, "A car is not a part that can be produced." Affected by the epidemic in Changchun and Hebei, we cut off some parts in mid-March, relying on some parts inventory to barely support until last week. Recently, there have been epidemics in Shanghai and Jiangsu, and many partners cannot supply goods and can only suspend production. In addition, Li Bin also said that such a situation is not a Weilai, and many manufacturers have suspended production.
In addition to the suspension of production due to the epidemic, NIO also announced that due to the continuous rise in global raw material prices this year, NIO will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products from May 10, 2022, involving vehicle prices, BaaS battery rental prices, etc. Among them, the starting price of ES8, ES6 and EC6 versions of the model was raised by 10,000 yuan; the starting price of ET7 and ET5 remained unchanged.
In terms of The rental price of BaaS batteries, the long-endurance battery pack battery rental service fee is adjusted from 1480 yuan / month to 1680 yuan / month; the standard battery pack battery rental service fee remains unchanged, still 980 yuan / month.
The price of the battery pack flexibly upgraded to the long-lasting battery pack is adjusted to 9800 yuan / year on an annual basis; the price of the flexible upgrade is unchanged on a monthly basis, which is still 880 yuan.
Weilai said that users who pay ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 deposits or ET5 reservation fees before May 9 (inclusive), car purchase and battery rental prices are not affected by this adjustment.
▲Nio ES8 model
Li Bin also said in the community that the price increase is helpless to hope that everyone understands, "this year's battery raw materials have risen sharply, and there is no downward trend in the near future, I originally wanted to carry it, and the epidemic situation is even more unbearable."
The day before the announcement of the price increase, Weilai just announced the suspension of production due to supply chain problems. It is worth noting that according to the delivery data released by Weilai in March, 9985 new cars were delivered in March, an increase of 37.6% year-on-year, and the cumulative delivery of new cars in the first quarter was 25768 units, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year. Although NIO's sales met expectations and achieved growth, it still fell out of the first echelon of delivery of new car-making forces.
In contrast, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 34,600 units in the first quarter, an increase of 260% year-on-year; Ideal Automobile delivered 31,800 units, an increase of 152.1% year-on-year; and Nezha Automobile sold 30,200 units, an increase of 305% year-on-year. The sales volume of Weilai Automobile has not exceeded 10,000 for three consecutive months, which is far from the first echelon.
It is not difficult to find that due to the impact of the epidemic in various places, the auto parts supply chain is difficult to sustain, coupled with the rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries, it also continues to impact new energy automobile enterprises, affecting the production and operation of car companies. At present, other new energy vehicle companies except Weilai have not yet issued a suspension notice, but it is expected that the next production situation is not optimistic.
In short, the barbaric growth period of new energy vehicles has passed, and the rapid rise in raw material prices has made new energy vehicles that rely more on lithium, nickel, cobalt and silicon-based chips embattled, and the price increase of electric vehicles in 2022 has become a fact.
2. New energy vehicles meet arduous challenges
In 2021, domestic car companies are plagued by lack of cores and shortages of battery raw materials. By 2022, the crisis will further aggravate, and for each new car-making force, the next challenge will be more arduous.
On the one hand, the state's subsidies for new energy vehicles began to ebb and flow, not only the cancellation of local government subsidies, the national subsidy standards will also be reduced by more than 50%, the overall subsidy decline is more than 50%, after the subsidy ebbs, car companies declare that they will not increase prices, which will inevitably lead to intensified competition;
On the other hand, the supply of lithium battery raw materials is tight, and after the soaring price of upstream raw materials, the profits of battery manufacturers continue to shrink. Since 2022, the price of upstream raw materials such as nickel, lithium and cobalt has risen sharply, resulting in a large number of domestic new energy vehicle companies choosing to increase the price of new cars, with an increase of thousands to tens of thousands of yuan. Some car companies have increased battery costs by 30%-50%, and even price increases cannot fully compensate for the decline in profits brought about by rising costs.
Data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a global battery supply chain agency, shows that from the beginning of January 2020 to the middle of January 2022, the prices of battery-grade cobalt and lithium carbonate rose by 119% and 569% respectively.
In January 2021, the average spot price of electrolytic cobalt was about 270,000 yuan / ton, and now it has exceeded 540,000 yuan / ton, an increase of 100%. Also in January 2021, the price of lithium carbonate in the range of 50,000 yuan / ton, as of March 1, 2022, the mainstream transaction price of domestic industrial-grade lithium carbonate market is between 480,000-485,000 yuan / ton, the average price is 480,500 yuan / ton; the mainstream quotation range of the battery-grade lithium carbonate market is between 495,000-506,000 yuan, and the average price rises to 500,400 yuan / ton. One price a day has almost become the norm.
▲New energy vehicles
Cobalt, lithium carbonate are important raw materials for batteries, not only cobalt, lithium and other raw material prices continue to rise, involving the production of new energy vehicles manganese, nickel, zinc, copper, iron, chromium, platinum, ruthenium and other metal raw materials prices are also rising. Among them, the rapid rise in nickel prices has been directly called "demon" nickel by the industry.
In the power battery, nickel plays an important role in the energy density of the battery, and the higher the power contained in the battery under the same volume, effectively improving the endurance of electric vehicles. In terms of power batteries, the price of lithium carbonate per ton has risen from 60,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, and the theoretical cost of each car with 50kwh of electricity will increase by 13,000 yuan (lithium iron battery) / 15,000 yuan (ternary battery).
The rise in raw material costs has led to an increase in the cost of battery manufacturers and a decline in gross profit. For example, the gross profit margin of Ewell Lithium Energy in Q3 of 2021 fell by ten percentage points year-on-year, and the battery giant Ningde Era seems to be unable to withstand the price increase of raw materials such as batteries, and the price has risen twice in recent months.
According to the Lithium Battery Research Institute (GGII) of The High Industry, Industry and Research Institute (GGII), the actual increase in the cost of battery companies is about 20%-25%, and the purchase price of the battery that is finally transmitted to the oem may actually increase by about 10%-20%. However, the pressure of rising prices has been passed on to battery manufacturers, who in turn have shifted the pressure to automakers.
Since March, nearly 20 new energy vehicle companies of more than 40 electric vehicles have begun to increase prices more or less, Tesla, BYD, Xiaopeng, Weima, Zero Run have officially announced the price increase details.
Among them, zero-run cars rose the most, with the highest amount of increase reaching 30,000 yuan, and some models under BYD, Nezha and Chery New Energy rose by 3,000 yuan. The price increase of Tesla's representative models exceeded 10,000 yuan, and under the tide of price increases, the reasons for the price increase given by car companies were related to the continuous sharp rise in the price of raw materials such as batteries.
New energy vehicles have raised prices one after another this year, and Weilai's action is relatively late. At the earnings report on March 25, Li Bin said, "There is no idea of price increases at the moment, but there will be some annual product improvement plans this year, and then the price policy and strategy will be judged according to the price of raw materials on the market." ”