Why Did Tesla Rise By 10,000 Yuan Again: Nickel, Neon And Other Raw Materials Have Risen in Price And Delivered in 5 Months At The Latest

"Tesla's price has risen because of raw material problems. Now it is ordered in China, and it will not be delivered until August this year at the latest. If you are lucky, there is hope for delivery in June", March 10, Tesla The news of the price increase came out again, Tesla sales staff told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter.

The reporter learned from Tesla that from now on, the price of the Model 3 high-performance version, the Model Y long-range version and the high-performance version will all increase by 10,000 yuan. Among them, the Model 3 high-performance version rose from 339,900 yuan to 349,900 yuan, the Model Y long-range version rose from 347,900 yuan to 357,900 yuan, and the Model Y high-performance version rose from 387,900 yuan to 397,900 yuan.

A number of industry insiders told reporters that Tesla's price increase is related to the supply of raw materials nickel and neon gas. According to the research report of the Research Department of CICC, from March 7 to March 8, 2022, the LME nickel futures market rose sharply, and the intraday price rose by 250% within two days. In addition, with the increase in oil prices, Tesla's demand in Europe has also climbed.

The price increase of nickel and neon gas drives the price of ternary lithium battery

"Because of the problem of raw materials, Germany has raised prices twice in a week in a row, and the current Tesla delivery time in Germany has become March next year, which means it will take a year to deliver," Tesla Sales The staff told reporters that Tesla's price changes according to market conditions.

According to the sales introduction, Tesla is now raising prices mainly because of the supply of raw materials and the increase in the price of raw materials. So, what raw materials are Tesla's prices related to?

Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology and an analyst in the automotive industry, told reporters that Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas. According to data released by market research agency Techcet in 2022, Ukraine's global supply share of neon gas is as high as 70%. Now the war between Russia and Ukraine has affected the global supply of neon gas.

According to industry insiders, neon gas is an inert gas. In the lithography process of semiconductors, inert gas is an important material. The price increase of neon gas will directly lead to the price increase of semiconductors.

In addition to neon gas from Ukraine, nickel supply from Russia is another reason. Zhang Xiang said that Russia is an important supplier of nickel, and nickel is one of the important raw materials for ternary lithium batteries, and the rise in nickel prices has also driven up battery prices.

Zhang Xiang said that the current Tesla Model 3 ordinary version uses lithium iron phosphate batteries, so the impact of this raw material price increase is not very big. Since last year, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory has completely used lithium iron phosphate batteries for vehicles, so this matter has a limited impact on Tesla's follow-up.

Some institutional research reports show that ternary batteries are the core construction of new energy vehicles, while the high-nickel ternary cathode material market is still in its infancy, and the production of large-scale low-nickel ternary batteries is still the mainstay. However, as the trend of high-nickel ternary materials is rising, and at the same time, cathode material manufacturers continue to break through the technical barriers to high-nickel ternary materials and produce them on a large scale. The output and market of high-nickel ternary materials are growing and expanding.

According to the research report of the above-mentioned institutions, the price of ternary batteries is closely related to the price of raw materials, especially the prices of the main precious metal raw materials cobalt and nickel. For example, in the first half of 2019, affected by the decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles and the decline in cobalt and nickel prices, the average prices of ternary battery precursors 523 and 622 in the domestic market dropped by about 27% from the beginning of the year by the end of July, when prices were the lowest. % and 22%.

Unlike 2019, the price of nickel is rising today.

According to the research report of CICC Research, from March 7 to March 8, 2022, the LME nickel futures market rose sharply. 30,000 US dollars / ton rose to more than 100,000 US dollars / ton, an increase of 250%.

On March 7, the LME announced that in view of the spot circulation problems caused by the influence of Russia and Ukraine, the delivery of certain contracts was allowed to be postponed. On March 8, the LME announced that it would suspend nickel trading. Since the price limit of Shanghai Futures Exchange is 12%, the current price difference between domestic and foreign prices has expanded to the lowest value in history.

Earlier, Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas publicly stated on March 7 that the price of nickel rose by 67.2% in one day, which means that the average input cost of manufacturing each tram has increased by about $1,000.