Tesla CEO musk recently said on social media that due to the rapid rise in the cost of lithium, a key raw material for manufacturing batteries, Tesla may directly enter the lithium mining and refining business on a large scale.
expand upstream
On April 8, Eastern time, musk posted on social media: “the price of lithium has reached a crazy level! Tesla may have to directly enter the mining and refining field on a large scale, otherwise the cost will increase significantly.”
According to the data of Shanghai Nonferrous Metals network, as of April 8, the price of industrial grade lithium carbonate was reported as 483500 yuan / ton, and the price of battery grade lithium carbonate was reported as 500000 yuan / ton. Recently, the price remained high and sideways, with a year-on-year increase of more than 480%.
Musk pointed out that lithium itself is not in short supply, but the extraction / refining speed is very slow.
Recently, many auto companies have entered the upstream. Volkswagen announced on March 21 that it had signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.Ltd(603799) , Castle Peak Group, and the three parties would form a joint venture to jointly invest in the development of nickel and cobalt resources in Indonesia, build a globally competitive nickel and cobalt raw material manufacturing system for new energy power batteries, and build an advanced power battery raw material manufacturing base.
It is understood that the joint venture plans to build an annual production capacity of about 120000 tons of nickel metal and about 15000 tons of cobalt metal, which can meet the supply of nickel and cobalt raw materials for about 160gwh batteries.
price increase to cope with cost pressure
Due to the sharp rise in the price of raw materials, the prices of automobile enterprises have increased one after another recently, including more than 20 automobile enterprises such as Byd Company Limited(002594) , Xiaopeng automobile and ideal automobile. Tesla has raised its price four times worldwide in two months, with the highest single car price increase of 30000 yuan.
On April 7, Tesla again announced on its official website that it would raise the price of some models of model 3. Among them, the price of model 3 long-range version was raised from US $54490 to US $55990, and the price of model 3 high-performance version was raised from US $61990 to US $62990.
Li Xiang, CEO of ideal automobile, said that at present, the automobile brands that have raised the price are the brands that have contracted with battery manufacturers to determine the price increase range of batteries in the second quarter. Automobile brands that have not yet raised prices are more likely to generally raise prices after negotiating with battery manufacturers about the range of battery price increase.
Sinolink Securities Co.Ltd(600109) pointed out that the current round of battery material cost increase is expected to have a certain impact on demand, but the impact is within a controllable range. At present, the demand is still relatively strong, basically returning to the level in January or last December. Consumers are expected to continue to raise prices. At present, the terminal demand is still strong, and the waiting cycle is generally 2-3 months.
