"In a few days, the car you are looking at will increase by about 5,000 yuan. It is recommended to place an order before the price increase." Recently, a sales manager at GAC Aian Xinpeng Guangyuan Store in Chaoyang District, Beijing. "Warm reminder" to consumers who come to see the car.

Since the beginning of this year, nearly 20 car companies including Tesla, BYD, and Xiaopeng have successively issued price increase announcements. A number of car companies said: "Compared with the impact of the subsidy decline on the company, the main cost pressure of the current car companies comes from the price increase of raw materials."

Raw material price hikes put pressure on companies

Recently, the news that the two models of Great Wall Motor's Ora Black Cat and White Cat have been discontinued has been screened. "We have achieved the ultimate in cost sharing, but the most critical reason for stopping orders is loss. The price of raw materials continues to rise, and the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles has been reduced by 30%, which puts the black cat and white cat in a difficult situation. ” said Dong Yudong, CEO of Great Wall Ora brand, “Now every car sold is a loss of 10,000 yuan.”

As the heart of new energy vehicles, the current price of power batteries accounts for nearly half of the cost of the entire vehicle. However, from upstream nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources to key raw materials such as lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, and lithium hexafluorophosphate, the prices of power battery raw materials have risen one after another, overwhelming battery manufacturers and OEMs.

Taking lithium carbonate, the main material in power batteries, as an example, battery-grade lithium carbonate is only 50,000 yuan/ton in early 2021, but the current price has exceeded 460,000 yuan/ton, an increase of more than 8 times; lithium hexafluorophosphate has risen from 100,000 yuan/ton to more than 500,000 yuan/ton; battery-grade cobalt rose from more than 200,000 yuan/ton to 550,000 yuan/ton; nickel sulfate rose from more than 20,000 yuan/ton to 41,000 yuan/ton.

The rising raw material prices have brought huge operating pressure to power battery manufacturers. In November last year, BYD announced a 20% price increase for battery products, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Penghui Energy followed suit, and CATL had to raise some battery prices.

"The price increase of raw materials is too large this time, and it is difficult to absorb all the increase in a certain link of the industrial chain." Dong Yang, vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, said that because China's new energy market was cultivated by financial subsidies in the early stage The market will not accept that the price of new energy vehicles is significantly higher than that of traditional vehicles of the same level. Therefore, there is little room for price increases of new energy vehicles. If the price increase of batteries exceeds the level that new energy vehicle companies can bear, it is very likely that the production and sales of new energy vehicles will decline two years ago, subverting the great situation of the rapid development of new energy vehicles in my country.

In addition, power battery manufacturers and material manufacturers are also in a period of rapid expansion, relying heavily on the capital market to support development. "If the financial situation deteriorates significantly due to the cost of absorbing the cost of rising raw material prices, it will seriously affect the confidence of the capital market and block the development momentum of power battery and material manufacturers." Dong Yang is deeply worried about this.

Three factors cause prices to soar

The sharp rise in raw material prices has also triggered reflections in the industry. "The first is the imbalance between supply and demand, and the increase in raw material production cannot keep up with the growth rate of new energy vehicles." Dong Yang said frankly.

As the world's largest new energy vehicle market, China's new energy vehicle sales will complete 3.521 million units in 2021, a year-on-year increase of nearly 1.6 times, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years. Driven by the demand for new energy vehicles, power batteries are in short supply. At the same time, the rapid development of energy storage batteries has further raised the price of lithium. The lithium-ion battery industry operation data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that the national lithium-ion battery output in 2021 will be 324GWh, a year-on-year increase of 106%. %, 146%. Among them, the output of the four key materials for lithium batteries has grown rapidly, and the growth rate of cathode materials, separators and electrolytes is close to 100%.

Secondly, some raw materials mainly rely on imports, and related industries lack international pricing power. According to data from the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, 65% of my country's lithium raw materials will need to be imported in 2021. Qinghai Salt Lake is rich in resources, but the current annual output is about 40,000 tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent), which accounts for a small proportion of the global lithium salt supply, and the product quality cannot fully meet the battery-level requirements. Due to factors such as local infrastructure, environmental protection and altitude, the development progress of Tibet Salt Lake is much lower than expected, and the current annual output of lithium carbonate is less than 5,000 tons. The grade of Sichuan lithium mine is not inferior to that of the Australian lithium mine, which dominates the global lithium supply. However, due to the low degree of exploration, geographical location and infrastructure construction, only Mika lithium mine and Yelonggou have entered production status. Lithium mine, the project under construction is Lijiagou Lithium Mine, and the projects to be developed are Cuola, Dangba and Dechalongba Lithium Mine.

In addition, the phenomenon of raw material suppliers and middlemen taking advantage of the industry boom to join forces with capital speculation should not be ignored. On July 29, 2021, Australian lithium concentrate supplier Pilbara (PLS for short) publicly auctioned a small amount of spodumene concentrate on its auction platform. The auction price was US$1,250/ton, far exceeding the market price of US$735/ton in the same period. On September 14 of the same year, PLS held the second auction, and it even sold a sky-high price of US$2,240/ton (the market price in the same period was US$1,000/ton). This has also greatly increased the market's expectations for lithium salt prices, and the price of lithium carbonate has accelerated, rising by 185,000 yuan/ton in just 3 months.

On September 30, 2021, Ganfeng Lithium joined with four other overseas lithium resource companies: SQM (Chilean Chemical Mining Company), Orocobre (Australia-listed lithium salt production company), and Pilbara (Australia-listed lithium mining company, namely PLS). ) and AMG (Brazilian Lithium Salt Company), to form the International Lithium Association (ILiA), claiming to be the voice of the global lithium industry and its stakeholders. This makes the lithium industry, which is already a small metal species, further concentrated, and makes the downstream industry of new energy worry that the upstream resource providers will join hands to control the price of lithium salt, create a panic in demand, and aggravate the stockpiling of goods in various links.

Guaranteeing supply and stable prices requires a joint response from the entire industry chain

From a global perspective, new energy vehicles are in a period of rapid development, the construction of raw material production capacity cannot keep up with the development speed of new energy vehicles, and the mismatch between supply and demand is difficult to completely change within a period of time. According to SNE statistics and forecasts, lithium batteries for power and energy storage will exceed 1,400GWh in 2025, and the demand for upstream resources such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel is huge.

Lithium, cobalt, nickel and other resources are the core raw materials of lithium batteries. It is of strategic significance to correctly understand and grasp the supply guarantee of primary products of lithium batteries. Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., said that the current supply and demand situation of lithium resources is severe, and the development of the industry faces challenges. It is urgent to "guarantee supply and stabilize prices". He believes that on the one hand, it is necessary to speed up the exploration and development of domestic lithium resources to ensure the security of the supply chain;

"The automobile industry is an important pillar industry of the national economy, new energy vehicles will become the mainstream of the automobile industry, and power batteries will become a trillion-dollar industry, but the major fluctuations in the production of new energy vehicles and power batteries will give social and economic development. It will bring unstable factors." Dong Yang suggested that, first, the competent government departments need to supervise the power battery material market, crack down on price gouging, and timely curb abnormal fluctuations. Second, the main raw materials for power batteries should establish a price coordination mechanism in accordance with bulk commodities. It is not only necessary to establish a domestic futures market mechanism, but also to actively participate in the international market price coordination mechanism. The third is that enterprises should increase their investment in the power battery raw material industry.

Xu Yanhua, secretary-general of the China Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, said that to enhance the global competitiveness of the power battery industry and achieve "guaranteed supply and stable prices", the key lies in strengthening the global distribution of mineral resources and upstream raw materials. If there is no ownership of upstream mineral resources and no pricing power for key raw materials, the power battery manufacturing industry will be reduced to "hard-working but unprofitable assemblers", and it will be difficult for the new energy vehicle industry to achieve high-quality development.

（经济日报记者 杨忠阳）

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