On March 23, 2022, Ideal Automotive announced on Weibo that it will adjust its prices. Starting from April 1, 2022, the price of the Ideal ONE will increase by 11,800 yuan. Users who make deposits before this date will not be affected.
Previously, the starting price of the Ideal ONE was 338,000 yuan, including three free wheel hubs and interior configurations, four free car paint options and three car paint choices that require an additional payment of 10,000 yuan. Delivery time is about 5-7 weeks.
The direct factor causing the general price increase of new energy vehicles in March 2022 was the price increase of battery raw materials, especially lithium ore. After Tesla, which has a relatively large demand for batteries and is more susceptible to battery price fluctuations, raised prices, manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Leapmotor also adjusted the prices of their own products. Currently, NIO has stated that it will not raise prices in the near future, while Voyah stated on Weibo that it is “currently deliberating.”
In the long run, as the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to increase, the industry’s supporting production capacity and resources will fluctuate slightly behind. Due to economies of scale and the development of battery technology, the cost of power batteries and the proportion of batteries in the cost of pure electric vehicles will still show a downward trend.
In the short term, the rapid growth in demand for power batteries in the new energy industry is not the main reason for the price increase. As power battery projects planned by various car companies are put into production, the impact of market demand growth on the cost of raw material mining and processing will become more evident.
In this round of wide price increases, a lack of sufficient power battery supply within the delivery cycle is mainly due to the inability of upstream battery manufacturers and mining operations to deliver their production capacity to consumer products in time.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.