On May 9, according to the Taiwan media economic daily, with the rise of the global trend of energy conservation and emission reduction, it has become an irreversible trend for automobile manufacturers to increase their investment in electric vehicles. Lin Fenhui, an analyst at DIGITIMES research, observed that the global electric vehicle sales in 2021 exceeded expectations, with an annual growth rate of more than 100%, resulting in insufficient supply of battery materials, and the price of lithium salt materials with large demand increased by more than 8 times in recent one year.
According to the statistics of automobile associations of various countries, the global sales volume of electric vehicles in 2021 reached 6.58 million, with an annual increase of 101.3%, which exceeded the industry's expectations, and simultaneously doubled the installed capacity of batteries, resulting in tight supply of battery materials and sharp rise in prices. Lin Fenhui estimates that the sales volume of electric vehicles will reach about 30 million by 2025, and the installed capacity of batteries will be close to 1700gwh, 5.7 times that of 2021. Therefore, the demand for battery materials will be very considerable.
The battery is mainly composed of four parts: positive material, negative material, electrolyte and isolation film. With the sharp increase in the demand for power batteries, the price of materials in each link has increased, especially the price of lithium salt (including lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide). This is because the cathode material with the highest proportion of battery cost and the electrolyte known as battery blood will use lithium salt. However, all parties scrambled for lithium resources, coupled with the serious shortage of work, which led to the extension of the production expansion schedule for more than half a year than expected, resulting in a more severe gap between supply and demand.
It is reported that in March 2022, the prices of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide have increased by more than 8 times respectively compared with the rise in December 2020. DIGITIMES research observed that battery manufacturers could not absorb the increase in material prices by themselves and passed the cost on to automobile manufacturers, which made them start to raise car prices and reduce the production of low-cost small cars with low profits. (checked by / indrich)