AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/24 Report--

Last night, Wuling issued a "explanation on the price adjustment of new energy models". The note points out that under the influence of comprehensive factors such as the sustained sharp rise in upstream raw material prices, SAIC GM Wuling will adjust the official guidance price of its Wuling Hongguang MINIEV series models, Wuling NanoEV models and Baojun KiWi EV models. The price adjustment will officially take effect from 0:00 on March 24th, with an increase of 4000-8000 yuan.

The Wuling official website learned that the price of the Hongguang MINIEV has been adjusted to 32800 yuan, an increase of 4000 yuan from the previous 28800 yuan, while the current starting price of the Hongguang MINIEV macaron version is 43800 yuan, up 4200 yuan from the previous 39600 yuan. In addition, Wuling Nano EV rose 4000 yuan to 56800 yuan, while Baojun KiWi EV directly adjusted from 69800 yuan to 77800 yuan, up 8000 yuan.

This is the second price increase for SAIC GM Wuling. In early March, except for the entry-level version of the 28800 yuan model, the price of the 2022 Hongguang MINIEV was raised by 2000 yuan. Of course, SAIC GM Wuling is not alone. Due to the rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries, a number of new energy car companies have announced increases in the prices of their models, including Tesla, GAC AION, Xiaopeng Automobile, ideal Automobile, BYD, etc., ranging from 2000 to 20000 yuan. Chery QQ ice cream, which is also a mini car, has previously announced a price increase, except for the entry-level version of Buding, which has not increased the price of the cone model and sundae model by 3100 yuan.

In addition to SAIC GM Wuling, Lantu Motor also announced a price increase today, which will be announced on March 31. The specific rate of price increase is unknown.

New energy car manufacturers have announced price increases, it is a helpless move. If the price increase at the beginning of the year is more affected by the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles, then the recent "second price rise" of auto companies such as Tesla and BYD has been explained by the rise in the price of raw materials, even for car companies that have not yet announced a price rise. are already on the way to price increases. Previously, ideal Motor founder Li Xiang said on Weibo, "at present, brands that have signed contracts with battery manufacturers to determine the rate of increase in battery prices in the second quarter have basically announced price increases immediately." For those who have not yet raised the price, most of them have not yet agreed on the rate of increase, and they will generally increase immediately after waiting for an agreement.

How crazy is the increase in the price of raw materials for power batteries? Lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, as important positive materials for lithium batteries, with the surge in sales of new energy vehicles, have risen from 50,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 21 years to around 275000 yuan / ton at the end of 21 years. With the outbreak of the situation in Russia and Ukraine during the Spring Festival, lithium, cobalt, nickel and other battery raw materials have another wave of high sprint. By March 23, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate had broken through the 500000 yuan / ton mark to 510000 yuan / ton, up 80 percent from the beginning of 2022. In addition, the price of electrolytic cobalt increased to 570500 yuan per ton from 469000 yuan in December 2021.

Does the price increase have an impact on car companies? The impact of price increases on different models is different. Take Wuling MINIEV as an example, the reason why it is able to maintain high sales is mainly low pricing, green card, in line with the daily needs of the city, but because the value of the minicar itself is not high, the price-to-performance advantage is not so obvious, consumers will choose to wait and see, or even replace the same level of models without rising prices, so the impact of price increases on minicars is still great. Previously, Euler cars had announced a moratorium on the sale of black and white cats. In addition to the delivery delays caused by a shortage of spare parts, another reason was that the rising prices of raw materials led to losses, and even after the price increases, they might not be able to make a profit, so they had no choice but to announce the suspension. From the consumer's point of view, due to the rigid demand for automotive products, consumers will still pay if the increase is within an acceptable range, but due to successive intensive price increases, many consumers choose to wait and see. At this stage, consumers may not be able to accept that the price of new energy vehicles is significantly higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles of the same class, and if prices continue to rise, it may significantly dampen market demand.

According to CCTV, affected by the rising prices of raw materials, domestic new energy vehicles have set off a "price rise", while some brands use order production, which coincides with the collective price increases of new energy vehicle companies when they are set to pick up their cars. As a result, some car owners transfer orders to earn the price difference. On the second-hand car trading platform, a seller sold the order for the honorable version of BYD Qin PLUS DM-i at a price of 3999 yuan, because it was ordered before the price increase last year, so the price of the whole car is still calculated before the price increase, which is 6000 cheaper than the current price. Even if the purchase order is increased by 3999 in Xianyu, it is also lower than the current price of direct booking.

Because of the rise in oil prices, Mr. Wang, who has been thinking about buying new energy vehicles, has finally made up his mind to sell the fuel vehicles and buy pure electric cars. However, he thought the replacement would be completed in a week or two, but was told by the 4S store that it would take more than two months to mention the new car. Then Mr. Wang spent 6000 yuan on a second-hand platform to buy an order for a new energy car and picked up the car that month. Mr. Wang said, "it can still be cheap to pick up the car early. Although there is an extra transfer fee of several thousand yuan, it is still cost-effective as a whole."

Due to the excessive revenue from resale orders, "scalpers" have also found business opportunities. On the network platform, there are many users who take the initiative to accept the transfer of orders, which may be real car owners or "scalpers" who earn the price difference, which can be recovered at a high price and sold at a higher price. Of course, the profit of resale orders as low as 3000 yuan can be much better than that of other industries, and even after repeated price increases, the final price of the order is still lower than that of the official website, and both scalpers and users can profit from it.

It should be noted that buying a car through "scalpers" looks like buying a new car, but it is actually buying a used car, because most car companies use a real-name system, that is, the order goes directly to the list of car buyers, and car companies generally do not support changing orders in order to prevent "scalpers" from malicious price increases. Therefore, the owner of the original order needs to transfer the ownership in order to change the vehicle to another owner. although it is a brand new car, it is already a second-hand car, and it will be sold as a third-hand car in the future. There may be legal risks in the transaction, such as "the vehicle cannot be transferred", "conceal the true mileage data of the vehicle", "the information of the accident vehicle is not transparent and asymmetric" and other problems may exist. Of course, some car companies have also taken certain measures to avoid this situation. The relevant person in charge of Tesla said that the company has asked car owners who have issued cumulative orders to buy several Tesla vehicles to sign a "letter of commitment not to resell", promising not to resell to a third party within a year, and violators will pay liquidated damages at 20% of the vehicle fare.

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