关键词: 补贴门槛, 产品定价, 动力电池回收, 产品研发, 闭环供应链

Abstract: With the increasingly prominent environmental problems, electric vehicles (EV) have become more and more popular around the world. Using the selling price of EV as the subsidy threshold has become a key criterion for governments to formulate incentive subsidy policies and change the existing competitive landscape of the EV market, potentially leading to intense price wars. Therefore, the urgent research question to be solved is: should EV manufacturers restricted by the price threshold subsidy adjust their prices to obtain subsidies? In addition, given battery recycling and innovation as the two main features influencing manufacturers’ pricing decisions, will subsidy policies force EV manufacturers to increase their innovation efforts and recycling rates?
This study provides an in-depth exploration of the competitive landscape between high-technology EV manufacturers and low-technology EV manufacturers in the market based on the price-threshold subsidy policy context, exploring three main questions: Firstly, it investigates how price threshold subsidy policy influences the optimal pricing strategies of EV manufacturers in a competitive landscape characterized by technological differentiation. Secondly, it delves into the impact of price threshold subsidy policy on the operational decisions of EV manufacturers, including pricing, recycling, and innovation under the three pricing strategies, and aims to uncover optimal pricing strategies for EV manufacturers. Thirdly, it explores how governments set a reasonable policy for price threshold and subsidy level.
Based on the above background, this study develops four pricing models. Firstly, we consider the pricing strategy in the absence of subsidies, serving as the benchmark model in this paper, denoted as Model N. Then, we consider the existence of price threshold subsidy policy. We examine a scenario where the government sets the price threshold between the two product prices, with high-quality products restricted by the price threshold while low-quality products are not subject to this threshold. Therefore, the low-tech manufacturer is the policy beneficiary, and the high-tech manufacturer is a policy restricted manufacturer. The three pricing strategies under the price threshold subsidy policy are: Model C-price retention strategy: it is assumed that the restricted manufacturer adopts a price retention strategy in response to the price threshold subsidy policy. Model D-pricing war strategy oriented towards market competition: to counter the competitive advantage of policy beneficiary, the restricted manufacturer considers participating in market competition by adjusting prices, but its pricing remains above the price threshold. Model J-pricing war strategy oriented towards subsidy acquisition: the policy-restricted manufacturer reduces the price to match the price threshold subsidy, allowing both EV manufacturers to qualify for the government subsidy. Finally, the Nash equilibrium solution of each model is obtained by using the backward induction.
Through the comparative analysis of equilibrium results, we find that, the restricted manufacturer can employ a combination of price war strategy and product innovation strategy to enhance its market competitiveness. Specifically, the restricted manufacturer should choose to implement a price retention strategy when both the price threshold and subsidy level are relatively low. Conversely, when the subsidy level is relatively high or the price threshold is relatively high, the restricted manufacturer can flexibly adopt price war strategies oriented towards market competition or subsidy acquisition to mitigate profit losses. When the subsidy level is relatively low, the policy beneficiary can also benefit from the pricing strategy adopted by the restricted manufacturer, achieving a win-win situation. In summary, the results drawn in this study not only contribute to further enriching the field of EV supply chain operational management but also serve as a reference for EV manufacturers when formulating decisions for pricing, product innovation, and product recycling in the context of price threshold subsidy policy. Additionally, it provides theoretical support for governments to formulate scientifically reasonable subsidy policies.

Key words: price threshold subsidy, product pricing, power battery recycling, product innovation, closed-loop supply chain