Battery cost of new energy vehicles shows a downward trend

With the new policy of “double points”, the new energy vehicle market is driven by policy to become market-driven. Strong market demand and continuous research and development technology are gradually reducing the cost of power batteries, and the prices of new energy vehicles are gradually approaching traditional fuel vehicles.

“The competition between the early two types of products is mainly concentrated on price, policy orientation and the expansion of interconnected technologies. Combined with the commercialization and production cycle of electric technology, by 2022, the market may be able to clearly feel the product differentiation of new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles. "The Ranger Auto co-founder Li Wei told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

The well-known consulting firm Wilson believes that 2025 will be the competition point for new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles.

Battery cost is declining

In 2017, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 777,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 53.3%. According to industry forecasts, this year's data will exceed one million units; by 2020, new energy vehicle sales are expected to reach 2 million units.

With the rapid development of domestic new energy vehicles, power batteries are increasingly popular as the core components of new energy vehicles, and the prices of raw materials such as lithium and cobalt continue to rise.

According to public data, cobalt, as an important raw material for power batteries, accounts for about 13% of the cost of ternary batteries. In 2016, the price of cobalt was 200,000 yuan/ton, and the current price has exceeded 600,000 yuan/ton. The price has increased about three times in two years. This also directly promotes the price of power batteries.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the Action Plan for Promoting the Development of Automotive Power Battery Industry last year, stating that power batteries are high-value components, accounting for 30% to 50% of the cost of electric vehicles. In order to reduce costs, in addition to using innovative business models to cope with challenges, it is necessary to form a better cost-sharing and sharing mechanism in the upstream and downstream of the industry. The program also clearly stated that by 2020 the cost of the power battery system should be reduced to the target of 1 yuan / wh.

In fact, after 2018, the sales growth of new energy vehicles in China has begun to shift from policy pull to market pull. "Currently, domestic power battery companies are actively adjusting their development strategies to cope with fierce market competition. A series of measures to increase product energy density, expand production capacity, increase R&D investment, and build intelligent production lines to improve production efficiency will further promote power batteries. The upstream and downstream of the industry chain continue to reduce costs." Zhang Yu, secretary general of the Power Battery Application Branch of the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, said.

For example, some companies are beginning to explore the possibility of using less cobalt or replacing cobalt while continuously improving the technical level of battery energy density. In Zhang Yu's view, the rising price of cobalt in battery raw materials will accelerate the popularization of high-nickel batteries, and the pattern of battery types will change in the future. Recently, according to Reuters, Panasonic is currently reducing the amount of cobalt used, and plans to develop cobalt-free batteries in the future. In early June, Tesla also said that the batteries used in Model3 have significantly reduced the cobalt content and increased the nickel content.

In addition, Zhang Yu believes that as the output of battery companies increases, the scale of production expands, and the degree of standardization increases, the cost of power batteries also decreases. There are predictions in the industry that in the next 10 years, the power battery will still be dominated by ternary batteries, and at the same time, it will develop toward high nickel and new system batteries. By 2020, the energy density of power batteries will increase to 220Wh/kg, the system cost is expected to drop to 1 yuan/wh, and the price of pure electric A-class vehicles will drop from the current 200,000 yuan range to around 150,000 yuan. .

In this regard, Wilson also believes that with the expansion of production capacity and battery technology, battery system costs will be reduced by about 10% to 20% per year by 2020. After 2020, the reduction will be about 5%. ~10%.

2025 or match point

The cost reduction of power batteries will greatly reduce the price of pure electric vehicles.

Wilson believes that compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the price of new energy vehicles is a "golf stick" type curve: during the promotion period, the reduction of battery cost is the main driving force for the rapid decline of new energy vehicle prices; after entering the development period, With the bottleneck of the development of ternary lithium batteries, the cost of new energy vehicles will slow down; by the time of the development period, with the application of new energy vehicles and new technologies, the product strength of new energy vehicles will become more prominent. Relative prices will gradually increase.

In fact, in order to further approach the price level of traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles need to consider the cost of use throughout the life cycle. In the future, when the purchase and use costs of new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles are basically the same, with the appropriate auto finance, automobile and power battery recycling policies, pure electric vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles will achieve the same level of competition.

"Pure electric vehicles, especially pure electric vehicles based on lithium batteries, want to compete with traditional fuel vehicles in the post-subsidy era, and win in the competition with pure fuel cells, plug-in hybrid batteries, and even new technology routes. It is necessary to gain an advantage in terms of technology and cost." Zhang Xiyong, general manager of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd., said at the recent International Summit Forum on Lithium Industry and Power Battery.

“In the early days, the competition between these two types of products was still focused on price, policy orientation and interconnection technology expansion.” Li Xi, co-founder of Ranger Motors, believes that “combined with the commercialization process and production cycle of electric vehicle technology, by 2022, the market The product differentiation of electric vehicles and fuel vehicles can be clearly felt, including the difference in vehicle cost, driving experience, and information interaction expansion service; then new product use ecology will be introduced, such as charging service, maintenance service, sales method, In operation and finance, these may be better than the current 4S shop mode; after entering the fields of automatic driving and car interactive expansion, the expansion of electric vehicles may be superior to fuel vehicles."

In this regard, Wilson believes that before 2025, new energy vehicles rely mainly on battery costs and the improvement of endurance to approach or achieve the competitiveness of traditional fuel vehicles; and by 2025 and beyond, new energy vehicles Positive development products will be increasingly introduced to the market, and more new technologies will be applied to new energy vehicles, such as solid-state batteries, high-power motors, smart interconnections, etc., and the competitiveness of new energy vehicles will also exceed that of fuel vehicles.

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