Battery shortage reproduction, how are new energy vehicle enterprises to find another way out?
A car company owner recently claimed that insufficient batteries were more worried than the shortage of chips. In the "chip shortage" constantly stir up the automobile industry, the "battery shortage" has exposed the hidden worries of new energy vehicle companies.
As early as October 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the battery shortage has prevented Tesla from increasing the production of the electric truck Semi. He reiterated this at an earnings call in January, saying that battery supply has become "a bottleneck in the current popularity of electric vehicles."
Li Bin, founder of NIo, also said that the battery capacity supply in Ningde Times is "tighter than expected".
Usually in a new energy vehicle, the cost of a power battery accounts for three to 40 percent. In the past few years, from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and other overseas brands of electric cars, to domestic electric brands Geely, NIo, Xiaopeng have been in a battery shortage.
To some extent, the shortage of power batteries has always been the "sword of Damocles" hanging over many new energy vehicle companies.
New energy vehicles and electricity are flourishing
However, on the other hand, the "battery shortage" also means the strong demand for new energy vehicles.
Gong Min, director of UBS China's auto industry, said that the strong demand for new energy vehicle market is the direct reason for the shortage of supply of power batteries. "The new energy vehicle market is developing too fast this year, and the battery industry is indeed insufficient capacity."
According to the data of China Automobile Power Battery Industry Alliance, in the first four months of 2021, China's cumulative installed capacity of power batteries was about 31.6GWh (1 GWh = 1 million KWh), a growth of 241%. China Automobile Association expects that 1.8 million new energy vehicles in China in 2021, an increase of about 40% year on year. In addition, Steve Man, a Bloomberg industry analyst, said that the battery consumption of Chinese new energy vehicles is expected to reach the 2,100 GWh, annual compound growth rate of 2040 compared with the 47 Gwh, in 2020.
Prices of raw battery materials have soared
In addition to the expanding demand of downstream car companies, the soaring prices of raw materials caused by commodity inflation also poses problems for the supply of power batteries.
The raw materials of traditional lithium battery mainly include cathode material, negative electrode material, diaphragm, electrolyte and other auxiliary materials. Among them, the cathode material is mainly composed of lithium carbonate and the precursor material, accounting for the largest proportion in the cost of lithium batteries. According to the Pacific Securities Research Institute, since 2021, the price of lithium carbonate has almost doubled with the same period in 2020, the price of ternary precursor, lithium iron phosphate, lithium hydroxide and other raw materials has increased by nearly half, and the price of lithium hexafluoride phosphate has increased the highest, up to 147.8%.
For battery manufacturers, if increasing battery prices may lose long-term orders, but without price increases, enterprises are under obvious pressure, and survival may be threatened. Since this year, Far East Battery, Zhuoneng New Energy, Penghui Energy, Hengdian East magnetic and Delaneng and other enterprises have issued battery price increase letters.
In the view of Yang Hongxin, president of Honeycomb Energy, the pressure of rising raw materials prices focuses on battery manufacturers, and OEMs will not easily agree to raise prices. Although suppliers have also borne part of the price pressure, battery manufacturers are indeed very pressure.
