Zhongxin Finance, April 12 (Ge Cheng) Weilai, who just said "no price increase for the time being" not long ago, couldn't bear it anymore, and joined the team of new energy vehicles to increase the price.
On the 10th, NIO officially announced that from May 10, 2022, the starting price of three models of NIO will increase by 10,000 yuan.
Car tycoon: price increases are a last resort
In response to this price increase, NIO CEO Li Bin responded by leaving a message on the NIO APP on April 11, saying: Raw materials, especially battery raw materials, have risen too much this year, and there is no downward trend in the near future. Once it becomes more unbearable, the price increase is also a last resort.
Please also understand.
On March 25, during the NIO 2021Q4 earnings conference call, Li Bin once said that after NIO's sales increased, many of the shared costs dropped a lot.
At the moment, we have no idea of raising prices for products.
However, he also said at the time, "This year, Weilai has a product improvement plan. At that time, a new price strategy will be formulated based on the market and raw material prices."
Nio is not the only car company facing cost pressure. Ideal and Xiaopeng, both of which are "new car manufacturers", also expressed that the cost is "high pressure".
Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Motors, said in an interview, "The increase in battery costs in the second quarter is outrageous." Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng said publicly, "The price increase of power batteries is beyond imagination."
"The price of raw materials has been rising recently, especially the cost of lithium carbonate may be 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, but it has risen dozens of times now." Li Xiang is "very helpless" about the rise in raw material prices, "If new energy vehicles With continued development, lithium carbonate will form an important futures market in the future, and there may be serious speculation."
Zhongxin Finance noticed that at the beginning of 2021, the price of lithium carbonate, the raw material of power batteries, was only about 50,000 yuan per ton, and recently it has soared to about 500,000 yuan per ton.
And nickel, another raw material for power batteries, has also soared after the epic rise in price. The nickel futures in London have risen from about $20,000 per ton to about $33,000.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Transport Association, judged that the production of lithium mines is related to the season. The output of salt lake lithium mines is relatively large in summer, and the demand is relatively stable, so the price of lithium carbonate will not continue to rise in the near future.
On April 9, 2022, new energy vehicles are waiting for sale in the used car market in Hefei, Anhui Province.
Photo by Jiang Guijia
Weird phenomenon! Prices doubled, sales doubled
Before Weilai, since 2022, new energy vehicles have generally ushered in price increases. Tesla, BYD, Xiaopeng and other car companies have successively announced price increases, and even more than one round of price increases, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of dollars.
However, at present, the price increase has not affected the strong momentum of new energy vehicle sales.
On April 11, data released by the Passenger Federation showed that in March 2022, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 445,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 137.6%.
In the first quarter of 2022, the domestic retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles was 1.070 million, a year-on-year increase of 146.6%.
Why did the price rise, but the sales doubled?
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Passenger Federation, said that the sales model of new energy vehicles is order sales. At present, there are many orders in the hands of car companies before the price increase, which leads to the basic digestion of pre-orders in March and April.
At the same time, Cui Dongshu also emphasized that consumers of new energy vehicles have the characteristics of strong rigid demand, relatively low price sensitivity, and small price changes will not significantly affect consumers' demand for new energy vehicles.
However, some people in the industry believe that the soaring price of raw materials will affect the overall development of the new energy vehicle industry chain.
Cui Dongshu said, "From the perspective of upstream and downstream industries, measures such as regulating market behavior have become an industry consensus."
Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also said that for the security of supply, effective measures should be taken to combat hoarding, so as not to affect the sales of new energy vehicles this year.
At the same time, he predicts that the balance of supply and demand of lithium resources may return to normal after 2-3 years, and there may be a cyclical excess of power battery capacity in 2025.
(Finish)