Recently, Weilai announced that it would appropriately adjust the prices of its products from May 10, 2022. Among them, the starting price of es8, ES6 and ec6 models increased by 10000 yuan. In terms of baas battery rental price, the rental service fee of long-life battery pack battery is adjusted from 1480 yuan / month to 1680 yuan / month.
The price rise of new energy vehicles is becoming more and more intense.
raw material prices continued to rise sharply, and new energy vehicles generally welcomed the rising tide
On April 6, Jihu automobile announced that certain price adjustments will be made to all models of Jihu brand from May 1, 2022, and the specific adjustment plan will be announced before April 30, 2022. On the same day, Chery New Energy announced that it would raise the price of some models by 2900 yuan to 5000 yuan. The price adjustment will take effect from 0:00 on April 7. On April 2, krypton automobile announced that it would raise the price from May 1, and the specific price increase plan would be announced before April 30. On March 31, SAIC Roewe announced that from 0:00 on May 1, the official guided prices of some Roewe i6maxev models and Roewe ei5 models will be adjusted, and the price will be increased by 3000 yuan to 5000 yuan.
In addition to the above-mentioned auto enterprises, up to now, nearly 20 auto enterprises such as great wall Euler, SAIC GM Wuling, Byd Company Limited(002594) , Xiaopeng, Nezha, Geely geometry, Zero run, Dongfeng lantu and Chang'an new energy have officially announced price increases. It is worth mentioning that in the official declaration of price increase of automobile enterprises, it is mentioned that the reason for the price increase is 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 to the US and Chinese markets. Especially from March 10 to March 17, the price of products in the Chinese market was raised three times in just eight days, with a price increase range of 1506000 yuan to 30000 yuan. Tesla said it was unclear whether prices would continue to rise in the future.
In fact, the price of the whole new energy vehicle industry is rising. The direct reason is the rising price of upstream raw materials, including lithium, nickel, cobalt and other metals and chemical materials. In addition, the rising cost of logistics and transportation caused by the epidemic and the instability of supply chain expectation caused by the international situation, resulting in many price increases.
supply and demand mismatch boosts the surge of 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, lithium is indispensable in the end.
In August 2021, the quotation of battery grade lithium carbonate was around 100000 yuan / ton, up to nearly 500000 yuan / ton now. Half a year later, the increase was as high as 400%. If calculated from 50000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021, the increase has reached 900%, but it still shows a trend of short supply. It took a month for the price of battery grade lithium carbonate in China to rise from 300000 yuan / ton in January to 400000 yuan / ton, while it took only about 20 days to rise from 400000 yuan / ton to 500000 yuan / ton.
At the beginning of January this year, the price of Lun nickel was US $20771 per ton. Today (April 13), the price has risen to US $32890 per ton, an increase of 58.34% for more than three months.
It is estimated that the unit price of lithium carbonate increases by 100000 yuan, and the cost of power battery increases by 52-62 million yuan per GWH. For every 10000 yuan / metal ton increase in the unit price of nickel, the cost of ternary lithium battery per GWH will increase by about 5 million yuan to 7.5 million yuan. For every 10000 yuan / ton increase in the unit price of cobalt, the cost per GWH of ternary lithium battery will increase by about 1 million yuan to 4 million yuan.
In addition, the madness of lithium carbonate occurs not only in the supply side of raw materials, but also in the field of waste power battery recycling. Previously, according to China Central Television, the price of retired batteries has exceeded that of new ones. When it was the lowest before, the recycling price of power battery was only 60% compared with that of new products. Now there is a price upside down phenomenon, with a discount coefficient of more than 100%. Even "120% has been dared to shout", and "second-hand products" are more expensive than new products.
The mismatch between supply and demand is the core reason for the rise in the price of lithium resources. After experiencing the trough of the last cycle, the capacity of lithium mining plants is limited, while the demand for lithium batteries driven by new energy vehicles has exploded in recent two years. Eighty percent of the global lithium ore production capacity is distributed overseas, especially in Australia, South America and other regions. The average production expansion cycle is 3-5 years. It is difficult to make up for the gap between supply and demand in the short term.
new energy vehicle increment continues to improve, and the diluted price increase cost is still "fragrant"
Although a number of auto companies announced price increases, the rise in sales of new energy vehicles remains unabated. Since April, a number of new energy vehicle enterprises have released sales data in March and the first quarter, and a number of vehicle enterprises have reached new highs.
On April 2, Tesla announced the production and sales in the first quarter of 2022. The output in the first three months of this year was 305407 units, and the global delivery reached 310048 units, with a year-on-year increase of 67.7% and a month on month increase of 0.5%. On April 5, Byd Company Limited(002594) released the production and sales express. In the first quarter, 286000 new energy vehicles were sold, with a significant year-on-year increase of 423% and a month on month increase of 7.6%.
In addition, Xiaopeng, ideal, Nezha and other new car making forces sold more than 30000 vehicles in the first quarter. Among them, the cumulative delivery of Xiaopeng cars was 34561, a year-on-year increase of 159%; Ideal cars delivered 31716 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 152%; Nezha's cumulative delivery volume was 30200 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 305%.
With the international oil price soaring from US $60 to about US $100 in the last half year, China's gasoline price is also rising, which has brought a great economic burden to the owners of fuel vehicles. On April 13, the latest price of Shandong 92 gasoline was 8.72 yuan per liter. According to the calculation of 50 liters of oil per box of ordinary cars, it costs 436 yuan to fill up a box of oil, with an average of about 6 to 70 cents per kilometer. A mainstream electric vehicle costs less than 10 cents per kilometer. The cost performance of new energy vehicles is prominent. After diluting the cost of price increase, they are still very "fragrant".
the "key" to solve the situation lies in the release of production capacity, and consumers will pay for the price increase
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. 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" Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) submitted a proposal on taking effective measures to promote the stable supply and price of lithium resources in China as soon as possible. "At present, the supply and demand situation of lithium resources is grim, and the development of the industry is facing challenges. China should speed up the exploration and development of lithium resources to ensure the safety of the supply chain. At the same time, we should strengthen independent innovation and scientific and technological research, and improve the level of resource recycling and efficient utilization," he said
The soaring of lithium carbonate has aroused great concern of relevant departments. On March 16, the Ministry of industry and information technology made it clear that it would crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding of lithium, nickel and other resources and driving up prices, and interviewed some lithium salt enterprises to guide lithium salt enterprises to ship directly to the midstream, "I hope everyone will slow down".
Affected by regulation, the price of lithium carbonate has fallen below the mark of 500000 yuan / ton. According to the data released by the business agency, the price of battery grade lithium carbonate was 482000 to 500000 tons on April 13.
Various signs show that the price of lithium ore has reached a high level, the risk of speculation is great, and the relationship between supply and demand has begun to be reconstructed. However, in order to solve the contradiction of demand mismatch, we have to wait for the capacity release of lithium ore in the medium term.
This means that the lithium gap is difficult to solve in the short term, and car companies still need to endure the constraints from battery price and supply. However, strong purchases are still rising, and consumers will eventually pay for them.
