According to the latest data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in October, new energy vehicles continued to maintain a rapid growth, with monthly production and sales reaching a new high of 762000 and 714000 respectively, up 87.6% and 81.7% year on year, and the market share reached 28.5%.

From January to October, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 5.485 million and 5.28 million respectively, with a year-on-year growth of 1.1 times and a market share of 24%. Among the main varieties of new energy vehicles, compared with the same period last year, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles continued to maintain a rapid growth.

The new energy automobile industry has been "soaring" all the way, but behind the prosperity also emerged the hidden worry of "lack of core and expensive electricity". Zhu Huarong, Chairman of Chang'an Automobile, said that the automobile industry suffered terribly from the "lack of core and expensive electricity". The unfair distribution of benefits in the automobile industry chain led to a maximum increase of 35000 yuan in the cost of a single car in Chang'an. From January to September 2022, Chang'an will lose 606000 cars. "Core shortage" will lead to a large number of semi-finished products in stock, and "expensive electricity" will lead to an increase of 5000-35000 yuan in the cost of a single car.

Lian Yubo, the executive vice president of BYD Group, also said that the overall anti risk capability of the industrial chain was insufficient, which had a huge impact on the development of the new energy automobile industry. How to transform the advantages of the industrial chain into a stable value chain is a problem that needs to be considered and solved in the future.

Lack of core leads to squeeze of car enterprise profits

The cold feeling of "core panic" has been spreading in the automobile industry. According to auto forecast solutions, the auto industry data forecasting company, as of October 30, due to the shortage of chips, the global auto market has lost about 3.95 million cars this year. According to the forecast, by the end of this year, the cumulative production reduction in the global automobile market will climb to 4.2785 million vehicles, an increase of about 16200 vehicles compared with the previous estimate.

Chip shortage is still one of the biggest bottlenecks restricting the development of new energy vehicles. Zhu Huarong said that under the background of chip shortage, the price of chips soared, which directly led to the increase of procurement costs of host manufacturers. At the initial stage of new product launch, due to chip shortage, the order delivery cycle was prolonged, which seriously affected the pace and sales of new product launch. "In order to seize production capacity, many new cars are installed first. If there is a shortage of parts, they will be replenished when the parts arrive. This uncontrollable supply has brought many industrial anomalies." Zhu Huarong said.

Zhu Huarong analyzed the reasons for the lack of core, mainly including that key technologies are restricted by people, and domestic enterprises are restricted and affected by lithography machines, design software and other problems; The contradiction between the short-term explosion of chip market demand and the long cycle of chip production increase; Structural shortage is becoming the norm. The automobile industry and chip industry lack direct communication and planning; Vehicle enterprises and chip enterprises have not built a cooperative relationship of risk sharing.

How to solve the problem of "missing core"? Zhu Huarong suggested that the country, the automobile industry, the semiconductor industry and enterprises should work together to achieve rapid breakthroughs through division of work and cooperation. Specifically, at the national level, the national ministries and commissions will take the lead in formulating safeguard schemes under extreme risks for high-tech fields of the industrial chain such as chips; Policies were introduced to actively promote the localization of core component technologies. At the industry level, accelerate the process of car chip integration and generalization; Build a direct and direct cooperation model between chip enterprises and the automobile industry with chip manufacturers and Tier1. At the enterprise level, adhere to "two hands" and strengthen open cooperation with international and domestic chip manufacturers; Strengthen self research and improve supply guarantee capability.

Battery accounts for more than 40% of vehicle cost

Like "lack of core", "expensive electricity" is also one of the important reasons that restrict the output of new energy vehicles. Over the past year, the price of raw materials for power batteries has continued to soar. Taking battery grade lithium carbonate as an example, the price at the beginning of 2021 is about 53000 yuan/ton, while the latest price this year has exceeded 560000 yuan/ton. Zhu Huarong said that at present, the cost of power battery has exceeded 40% of the total cost of electric vehicles, which seriously affects the achievement of product benefits and greatly disturbs the cost of enterprises. The increase in battery cost is also far greater than the value of technological progress to users.

"All major auto enterprises have suffered from this, with sales volume declining, delivery delay and cost increasing to varying degrees, seriously threatening the healthy and sustainable development of the auto industry, especially new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles." Zhu Huarong said.

Lian Yubo also said frankly that in addition to the challenges of the market and technology, the rising prices of power raw materials and batteries have had a great impact on the entire new energy vehicle industry chain.

For the reason of "expensive electricity", Zhu Huarong analyzed that the high battery price was due to the rising price of raw materials, vicious capital speculation, sellers' reluctance to sell, and middlemen's hoarding. Therefore, Zhu Huarong suggested that, with the support of relevant departments, we should crack down on anti profiteering activities in accordance with the law, solve the problem of raw material hoarding and speculation of individual enterprises, improve the battery generalization level, reduce costs and improve efficiency.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has taken many measures to promote the high-quality development of automobiles

Relevant competent departments are also actively helping the industry get rid of the dilemma of "lack of core and expensive electricity". Guo Shougang, Deputy Director of the First Equipment Industry Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will continue to promote high-quality development of the automobile industry. On the one hand, optimize the policy supply, complete the revision of the credit management method as soon as possible, and organize the pilot of the pilot area for comprehensive electrification of vehicles in the public domain. On the other hand, we should ensure stable operation, improve the early warning mechanism for automobile production risks, actively carry out upstream and downstream cooperation in the industrial chain of vehicle parts, basic components, key materials, etc., strengthen cooperation in the development of international resources, promote the acceleration of domestic resource development, combat speculation, hoarding and other unfair competition behaviors.

Guo Shougang also proposed to support innovation and breakthrough, focus on the new generation of electronic and electrical architecture, automotive chips, new system batteries, high-precision sensors, automotive operating systems, key basic materials and other fields, increase investment in technology research and development, and strengthen the docking of capital and technology. It is necessary to optimize the development environment, carry out the access pilot of intelligent connected vehicles as soon as possible, strictly manage the production access, curb blind investment and repeated construction, coordinate the construction of power supply and replacement infrastructure, focus on solving the problem of difficult charging of community highways, speed up the formulation of power battery recycling management methods, and improve the construction of recycling system. In addition, it is necessary to deepen international cooperation, implement the opening policy in the automotive field, and strengthen the coordination and docking with the international prevailing economic and trade rules.

Reviewed by: Xu Xiangyang

Editor in charge: Huo Yue

Editor: Zuo Zongxin