Nickel (Ni) price fluctuations will continue to cause new energy vehicle prices to rise, and car companies will be under pressure on costs . Is it
Ni?
Car companies adjust the "circuit" response
Text/Picture/Table Guangzhou Daily All Media Reporter: Deng Li
Tesla's car prices have risen for two consecutive weeks in a week, and BYD announced another price increase on March 16... The source of this round of price increases points to "the price of raw materials continues to rise sharply."
Although car companies have worked hard in recent years to reduce the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles and make the terminal price in line with fuel vehicles, the increase in raw material prices in recent years has caused resistance to cost reduction.
The reporter noticed that among the raw materials of power batteries, the pressure of "nickel" has increased sharply recently.
Nickel is an important raw material for ternary lithium batteries used in many new energy vehicles.
According to industry insiders, car companies with higher prices will continue to come; some car companies have already begun to change their technical routes: low-end models have adopted lithium iron phosphate batteries with lower energy density and cheaper, but do not require nickel.
As soon as the price of nickel moves, the "value" of batteries rises
How important is nickel to new energy vehicles?
Zhu Yulong, a senior electronic engineer, said that in power batteries, nickel plays an important role in the energy density of the battery, which can effectively improve the battery life of electric vehicles.
It is reported that high-nickel ternary is an important technical path to drive the mileage of new energy vehicles to generally increase to more than 600km.
For example, the high-nickel ternary has always been an advantageous product in the CATL era, and is being supplied to many new energy vehicle companies such as Tesla, Xiaopeng, and Weilai.
The reporter noticed that with many car companies focusing on mid-to-high-end new energy models, long cruising range is becoming the key to measuring their worth.
At present, among the upstream materials of ternary lithium batteries, nickel accounts for nearly 30% of the total cost, and high-nickel and ultra-high nickel batteries account for a higher proportion.
Domestic leading battery factories are inevitably "involved" in the battle for nickel, including Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Yiwei Lithium Energy, etc.
The China Automobile Association predicts that the penetration rate of ternary high nickel in domestic power batteries will reach 62% in 2025, the compound annual growth rate will reach 95%, and the penetration rate in global power batteries will reach 66%. The average growth rate will reach 90%.
Yang Yanxia, director of the Marketing Department of Huayou Cobalt New Materials Industry Group, said that although the largest application area of nickel downstream is still stainless steel, the largest increase comes from the field of lithium batteries.
Driven by the demand for new energy vehicles, the proportion of nickel in the field of lithium batteries has continued to increase. The proportion was about 3.5% in 2015, 16.1% in 2021, and is expected to rise to about 21.5% in 2022. Before 2030, Nickel demand for electric vehicles will account for 59% of the total nickel supply.
It is not difficult to see that the fluctuation of nickel prices has a great impact on new energy vehicles.
"According to the calculation, the increase of 100,000 yuan per ton of nickel will be transmitted to the battery factory's bicycle with 50 kWh of electricity, which will increase at least three or four thousand yuan or more. , the price of nickel is highly correlated with the price of cathode materials for ternary lithium batteries.
Energy research firm Rystad Energy even warned that by 2024, global demand for high-grade nickel needed for electric vehicle batteries could outstrip supply.
The reporter noticed that as of the closing period of the LME (London Metal Exchange) on March 7, the price of nickel soared, setting the largest increase in the history of futures contracts in 35 years.
Market: Consumers generally accept rising car prices
The lack of nickel in power batteries is affecting the price of new energy vehicles.
According to the reporter's incomplete statistics, since the beginning of this year, Tesla, NIO, Xiaopeng, BYD, GAC Aian, ORA, Volkswagen, Leapmotor, Extreme Krypton, Ford, Weimar and other brands of new energy models have announced price increases , including most of the current mainstream new energy models in the market.
In the terminal market, Xiao Liu, a salesperson of new energy vehicles, told reporters: "The price of new energy has been rising since the beginning of this year. We calculated that the price increase of the same models is between 1% and 10%. Most consumers are accepting this reality.” Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Passenger Federation, also believes that these factors will not have a significant impact on the sales of new energy vehicles, “From January and February, the year-on-year increase in sales of new energy vehicles has It has reached a level of about 150%. At present, consumers can accept the price increase." He said that the price increase of new energy vehicle raw materials is a cyclical phenomenon, and the current increase in car prices is a reflection of the increase in raw material prices.
"The new energy vehicle market is in good shape this year, and there will be car companies that will announce price increases in the future." Cui Dongshu said, "However, with the recovery of the supply environment at the raw material industry side, the unfavorable factors of price increases will also be alleviated to a certain extent."
Car companies: There are new energy vehicles sold at a loss of more than 10,000 yuan
The rise in raw materials is bringing greater pressure on manufacturing costs to new energy vehicle companies.
"We have maximized cost sharing, but the price of raw materials continues to rise, and the new energy vehicle subsidy policy will drop by 30% in 2022. By 2023, Euler Black Cat and White Cat will lose nearly 17,000 yuan per car sold. ” Dong Yudong, CEO of ORA brand, said recently that due to “serious losses”, some ORA models have stopped accepting orders.
What he said is exactly what many new energy vehicle companies are saying: selling new energy vehicles is far from the time to make money.
Ge Yuan, investment director of Ou Rui Fund, said that new energy vehicles rely more on materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and silicon-based chips than fuel vehicles. Various raw materials from batteries to vehicle parts are the key to restricting the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles.
Take lithium carbonate, the core raw material of power batteries, as an example.
According to the data of the business society, on March 15, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in East China reached 496,000 yuan / ton.
At the end of December 2020, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in East China was only 54,600 yuan/ton.
In less than a year and a half, the price of lithium carbonate has increased eightfold.
At the same time, the East China market price of cobalt has risen from less than 300,000 yuan/ton in early 2021 to 566,700 yuan/ton on March 15.
The prices of diaphragms, positive and negative electrode materials, electrolytes, etc. involved in other power batteries have increased in varying degrees.
Impact: New energy vehicle companies welcome the "year of differentiation and elimination"
For the popularization of new energy vehicles, an important condition is to reduce the price.
With the reduction of subsidies for new energy vehicles, the increase in the price of raw materials, and the introduction of exclusive insurance, the prices of new energy vehicles may not be as "friendly" as they used to be.
The reporter noticed that in order to reduce battery costs, some car companies chose to use lower energy density and cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries on low-profile models. The battery uses iron phosphate and does not require nickel or cobalt.
For example, Tesla chose lithium iron phosphate batteries for its Model 3 entry-level models. After the nickel price increase, the price increase did not involve its entry-level models.
According to data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Alliance, the cumulative installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2021 will have a market share of 51.68%, surpassing that of ternary lithium batteries.
So, will the rise in nickel prices affect the technical route prospects of lithium batteries?
Mo Ke, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, believes that "no", "high nickel ternary is still the direction, because the disadvantage of lithium iron phosphate battery energy density is difficult to improve." Before there is no breakthrough in battery technology, ternary lithium battery is due to Its high energy density makes its status difficult to shake.
With the advancement of technology, the possibility of further reduction in the cost of ternary lithium batteries is not ruled out.
The research report of Cinda Securities shows that in terms of specific capacity, high-nickel ternary materials have an advantage of about 30% compared with low-nickel ternary and lithium iron phosphate. Even BYD's "blade battery" has only the current mainstream energy density. 80% of the ternary lithium battery.
Industry insiders believe that in the medium and long term, the nickel incident will lead more capital to be deployed in the energy metal mining industry.
Cui Dongshu pointed out that the cyclical fluctuation of raw material prices is testing the viability of new energy vehicles. The market needs companies that can really make money. Differentiation, elimination and merger will be the theme of new energy vehicle companies in 2022.