SAIC GM Wuling, which has always been famous for its performance-to-price ratio, has also failed to hold on to the price in this wave of price increases for new energy vehicles.
On March 24, SAIC GM Wuling issued a "explanation on the price adjustment of new energy models", saying that due to the influence of comprehensive factors such as the continuous sharp rise in the price of upstream raw materials, SAIC GM Wuling will adjust the official guidance prices of its Wuling Hongguang MINIEV series models, Wuling NanoEV models and Baojun KiWi EV models, ranging from 4000 yuan to 8000 yuan. The price adjustment will take effect from 0:00 on March 24th.
Among them, Hongguang MINI EV, as an electric "magic car", killed the price of A00 new energy vehicles to less than 30, 000 yuan, and sold a total of 426452 vehicles in 2021, becoming the top seller of new energy vehicles in that year. And this car is also the car with the highest increase this time-- the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV easy model rose nearly 14%, bringing the price of the whole series to more than 30, 000 yuan.
"Battery costs account for the highest percentage of vehicle costs (pure electric models), up to 1 beat 3, and even account for more than 40% in some low-configuration models with few chips." An analysis of a new energy vehicle industry believes that as an A00-class car, its profit itself is relatively thin, and the profit is bound to further shrink after the rise in the price of power batteries.
Prior to this, SAIC GM Wuling has also adjusted the price of its models. According to the official website of SAIC GM Wuling Automobile, the Wuling NanoEV rose by 3000 yuan and the official guiding price was adjusted to 52800-62800 yuan on Feb. 7. The price of the model has risen again by 4000 yuan this time.
In this spring tide of rising prices of new energy vehicles, 10 car companies, including Tesla, BYD, Chery New Energy, Xiaopeng Automobile, Nawei Automobile, Zero car, Euler, ideal and Ian, have all adjusted their prices. Among them, Ola good Cats, which are also A0-class cars, increased by 6000 to 7000 yuan after announcing a series-wide price subsidy not long ago, an increase of less than 5%. And Wuling Nano EV price counterpart Euler black and white cat, announced in February this year to stop receiving orders. Dong Yudong, CEO of Euler Automobile, said, "Euler's two models have brought huge losses to the company. take the black cat as an example, the price of raw materials rose sharply in 2022, and the single black cat lost more than 10,000 yuan."
"this is a game process." In the view of the people in the above-mentioned industry, battery manufacturers have digested part of the increase in the price of upstream raw materials, and on this basis, they have negotiated with the downstream mainframe factory: "if the two sides can reach an agreement, they can continue to supply; on the contrary, the mainframe factory may close the order."
General Motors, one of SAIC GM's Wuling shares, also mentioned the difficulties encountered in its Chinese business in its 2021 results. "Price competition, higher commodity and raw material prices, and a more challenging regulatory environment related to emissions, fuel consumption and demand for new energy vehicles will put pressure on our business in China." GM said in its financial report.
In the face of a new round of price increases for new energy vehicles, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of passengers, wrote that "since the beginning of this year, the price increase of new energy vehicles has gone through two stages. Under the background of skyrocketing global basic resource prices, the industrial chain is under comprehensive pressure. Therefore, the price adjustment of new energy vehicle enterprises is relatively rational."
"among the factors affecting the price increase of the whole vehicle, the battery is the largest, with a weight of about 50%, followed by the chip, which accounts for about 20%. Although the increase in battery cost can be covered by the decline in traditional manufacturing costs, it will lead to a net profit of the mainframe factory to zero, so it can only choose to increase the price in the end. " The aforementioned industry personage pointed out the logic of this round of general rise in the price of new energy vehicles.
The prices of some lithium materials rose again, with lithium metal rising 175000 yuan / ton, with an average price of 3.05 million yuan / ton, cobalt oxide up 5000 yuan / ton, and cobalt tetroxide up 9000 yuan / ton, according to data from Shanghai Iron and Steel Federation on March 24th.
However, in the view of the China Automobile Association, this extraordinary rise in raw material prices deviates from the normal relationship between supply and demand, and belongs to an irrational rise, and there is an unfair competition behavior of hoarding and deliberately driving up prices in order to seize the last window before lithium production expansion. "the pricing of upstream enterprises should return to rationality, and car companies should also stabilize their positions." Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Association, said, "since the second half of 2021, the China Automobile Association has put the increase in raw material prices into the monitoring field of vision, and has stepped up its actions in the near future to submit suggestions to the relevant authorities. In view of this kind of unfair competition, the national competent authorities have made it clear that they will resolutely crack down on this act of unfair competition. "
