The recent rise in oil prices in China has made fuel car owners complain incessantly. The "9 yuan era" has made many people dare not shout "95 full" at will. In this case, can the sales of new energy electric vehicles that do not burn oil and only use electricity take the opportunity to soar? The answer is not so. The global electric vehicle is in the embarrassing situation of rising costs and forced to raise prices. For some time, affected by the situation in Russia and Ukraine and the shortage of chips for more than a year, the world's major electric vehicle manufacturers have raised prices under the pressure of high costs. China is the world's largest producer of new energy vehicles and the largest consumer market.
"Sell one, lose ten thousand"
Tesla and SpaceX have recently faced huge inflationary pressures in raw materials and logistics. Tesla CEO Elon Musk released the above information on his social media on March 13, and Tesla raised prices three times in the Chinese market before and after March 13.
On March 10, Tesla announced that the price of model 3 high-performance version, model y high-performance version and long-range version sold in China increased by 10000 yuan. On March 15, the price of the above models was increased by 18000 yuan to 20000 yuan again, and the standard life of model 3 was also increased to 279900 yuan. On March 17, the price of model y standard endurance version also increased by 15060 yuan to 316900 yuan.
China's new energy vehicle brands have also ushered in a wave of price increases. Car enterprises including Xiaopeng automobile, Byd Company Limited(002594) , SAIC GM Wuling, SAIC Roewe, Great Wall Euler, geometry automobile, Weima automobile and SAIC Volkswagen have successively announced price increases. Most of the price increases are within 10000 yuan, and a few products have increased by more than 10000 yuan.
But the most striking is the Great Wall's Euler automobile. Dong Yudong, CEO of the enterprise, recently admitted that due to the sharp rise in the price of raw materials, the company's best-selling model Euler black cat "sold one and lost 10000", and was forced to stop receiving orders. Dong Yudong said in a statement that it was a helpless move to stop receiving orders. The background is the current environment of lack of core and less power. "Take black cat as an example. After the sharp rise in raw material prices in 2022, black cat lost more than 10000 yuan per unit," Dong Yudong said. "I believe the problems encountered by Euler brand are also the risks faced by the industry".
The rise in the price of electric vehicles has a direct impact on car buyers, especially micro electric vehicles with a price of tens of thousands of yuan. As SAIC GM Wuling has a local factory, Wuling Hongguang miniev is one of the most common micro electric vehicles in Liuzhou, Guangxi. The recent price rise made Mr. Lu, a citizen of Liuzhou who wanted to buy this car, hesitate. "Originally, a car was only forty or fifty thousand yuan, but now it has increased by thousands. It feels very uneconomic," Mr. Lu said. If you want to buy a micro electric car, it's only for commuting. "It's better to continue to ride an electric car if you spend nearly 10% more.".
Bottleneck
"(at present, the price of new energy vehicles) has not been increased. Most of them are that the price increase range has not been negotiated. After negotiation, the price will generally be increased immediately." Li Xiang, founder of ideal car, said publicly recently that "war, politics and epidemic situation have enabled car buying to appreciate, and the overall price of second-hand cars in the United States has increased by 30%".
As Li Xiang mentioned, the price rise of electric vehicles has been a common phenomenon in various countries. In mid March this year, Tesla has raised the prices of all models by 4% - 10% in the United States, and raised the prices in other markets, including Japan. In India, Tata Motors, the largest local electric vehicle manufacturer, is also burdened by rising costs. Reuters quoted shailesh Chandra, managing director of the company's passenger and electric vehicle subsidiary, as saying that the soaring global raw material prices have led to a rise in battery costs of about 20%, which has put short-term pressure on the company. To solve this problem, Tata Motors has raised the price of an electric SUV sold in India by $300, and plans to offset some of the costs by increasing local procurement in automobile manufacturing.
Since last year, the price of raw materials for electric vehicles has begun to rise slowly, and the price of raw materials for power batteries represented by lithium carbonate has increased almost linearly recently. Statistics show that the prices of the main raw materials of power batteries such as lithium, cobalt and nickel have increased significantly this year. In March, the comprehensive market quotation of battery grade lithium carbonate was about 500000 yuan per ton, while the price of battery grade lithium carbonate at the beginning of 2021 was only 50000 yuan per ton. At the same time, the price of cobalt also increased from less than 300000 yuan per ton at the beginning of last year to nearly Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) yuan per ton in March this year, nearly doubling.
On the one hand, this reflects the bottleneck faced by the supply of raw materials, on the other hand, it is also the impact of the situation in Russia and Ukraine. Russia is the third largest producer of nickel metal in the world, and nickel is the main raw material for the cathode of ternary lithium battery. As Russia launched a "special military operation" against Ukraine at the end of February, the United States and other western countries announced sanctions against Russia, which made the market worried that nickel might face the problem of supply shortage.
While the price of battery raw materials rises, the problem of "lack of core" is still perplexing global auto enterprises. Recently, Italy France semiconductor, the main supplier of vehicle mounted Microcontrollers in Europe, issued a price increase notice and will increase the price of the whole product line from the second quarter of this year. When it comes to the reasons for the price rise, Italy France semiconductor said that it is mainly due to the continuous shortage of some semiconductor parts and components, coupled with the impact of the overall economic environment and geopolitical factors on the industry, which is still difficult to ease in the short term. As the company continues to invest and the costs of materials and logistics also rise, it is difficult to absorb all the costs. Therefore, the price of the whole product line will be adjusted from the second quarter.
How to resolve
For the current challenges faced by the electric vehicle industry, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of China's Ministry of industry and information technology, said on March 26 that the current sharp rise in the price of power battery raw materials needs to be paid close attention to and seriously studied and solved. We will moderately accelerate the progress of China's resource development, resolutely crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding, speculation and speculation, and guide upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to strengthen cooperation and win-win development.
Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the China Federation of riders, said in an interview with the global times that unlike the previous comprehensive supervision of power coal price speculation, it is difficult to carry out supervision and regulation because some key raw material reserves of electric vehicles are overseas. Cui Dongshu said that for environmental protection reasons, some key raw materials of electric vehicles are not mined on a large scale in China, and relevant departments can consider appropriately relaxing policies in this regard. At the same time, the state can also consider temporarily reducing energy storage projects to avoid competing for power batteries with the electric vehicle industry in this field.
An insider in the power battery industry suggested to the reporter of the global times that the cost pressure of batteries can be resolved in a variety of ways, such as improving battery performance and diversified selection of suppliers.
For the future price trend of raw materials for power batteries, China International Capital Corporation Limited(601995) recently released a research report that the impact of sanctions against Russia on the global trade landscape may last longer, the supply chain that has not been restored faces greater challenges, and the partial supply chain rupture of key materials may also cause potential demand damage.
However, Cui Dongshu believes that at present, the price of electric vehicles is rising due to the lack of power battery supply, but in the long run, with the elimination of supply shortage and technological progress, the price of electric vehicles will still show a downward trend.
