China News Service, August 18 (Zhongxin Finance and Economics Ge Cheng) The "core shortage" that has plagued the automotive industry for nearly two years is about to end?
According to media reports, after the price surge, the chip market began to see price cuts, and some chip prices even began to fall in an avalanche, with a drop of 90%.
Although the tight supply of chips has eased, with the rapid increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, some automotive chips are in short supply.
After the price increase in the first half of the year, will the price of new energy vehicles drop in the second half of the year?
Data map: Chip.
Why did chip prices fall?
According to Shen Hui, founder, chairman and CEO of WM Motor, the recent change in chip prices is not an "avalanche", but a "return".
Compared with traditional vehicles, new energy vehicles face greater cost pressure in terms of chips.
"Traditional cars are about 600-800, and new energy vehicles will reach 1300-1400." Yuan Chengyin, secretary general of the China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance, told Zhongxin Finance, "In terms of the price of a single chip chip, a traditional car costs about $400. , the new energy needs 700-800 US dollars, if including intelligent configuration, it may exceed 2,000 US dollars.”
"Although the original price of a chip with a price of more than ten or twenty yuan has risen to several thousand yuan, everyone still has to use it." Yuan Chengyin said, because every chip is irreplaceable, especially the chip related to control stability and functional safety. .
"Take the ESP chip as an example, it has risen from a few hundred yuan to 3,500 yuan in the past, an increase of as much as 10 times." Shen Hui said that in the past, the cost of the whole vehicle chip was infinitely close to the battery pack, and the car companies paid a huge price.
Regarding the reasons for the fluctuation of chip prices, Yuan Chengyin told Zhongxin Finance that before that, some companies snapped up chips to occupy a large amount of production capacity. Starting from 2020, when the demand for new energy vehicles increased, the supply fell due to no production capacity. This has led to a rise in the price of automotive chips.
In addition, the shutdown of some factories and the panic in the market have further pushed up the price of automotive chips.
At present, the situation of the above points is improving.
Affected by rising costs such as chip prices, new energy vehicle brands announced price increases in the first half of the year.
"No car company is willing to win the market competition by raising car prices. When the chip price rises, car companies generally regard the lack of chips as a short-term price change and digest it through their own adjustments." Shen Hui said that chip prices fell , just represents the normalization of the BOM cost of smart cars.
On the contrary, if chip prices keep rising, car prices will inevitably follow.
The picture shows people visiting the auto show.
Photo by Luo Yunfei
Will the price of new energy vehicles drop?
In the view of some industry insiders and car companies, chip price reductions will not lead to widespread price reductions for new energy vehicles.
"The previous price increase was not entirely due to the chip." Yuan Chengyin said, "Because the bulk materials have risen, whether it is nickel, steel, aluminum, including the positive and negative poles are all rising, so the reason cannot be all deducted from the chip. above."
In Shen Hui's view, falling chip prices will make cars cheaper.
At present, some car owners have reported that the maintenance of LED headlights costs several thousand, and they cannot be hit and repaired.
"This time, the prices of LED light-emitting chips and driver chips have dropped by 30%-40%. The prices of these spare parts, whether it is the original factory or the auxiliary factory, will drop significantly."
Tight supply and demand of automotive chips may continue
According to data released by the China Automobile Association and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in the first half of the year, mobile phone shipments declined, while new energy vehicles rose strongly.
In response to this phenomenon, there is a view that "the production capacity of mobile phone chips can be shifted to alleviate the shortage of automotive chips." Yuan Chengyin said that there are differences in the process of automotive regulations and consumer chips. From the perspective of the industry chain , it is not easy to do this.
"It's not simply that I make 'dumplings' today and 'noodles' tomorrow." Yuan Chengyin analogized that the production line of automotive-grade chips will have higher requirements for reliability and some production consistency.
Recently, chip maker NXP announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2022 that about half of its revenue came from the sale of chips for automobiles.
NXP said that at present, the supply of the company's electronic components is still unable to meet all the orders in the industry, and even with the flat overall demand for automobiles, the company still believes that the supply and demand relationship is tight.
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