Tesla will now officially enter the mining business with lithium claims on 10,000 acres of land in Nevada.
At the Battery Day event yesterday, as part of its brand new battery supply strategy, Tesla announced that it was developing its own lithium processing method.
Drew Baglino, SVP of engineering at Tesla, said:
“We are going to use a new process, which we will pioneer. It is again a sulfate free process, we leave the intermediate. This will result in a 33% reduction in lithium costs. “
They didn’t go into too many details about that process.
CEO Elon Musk added:
“What is the best way to take ore and make lithium ka ract in an environmentally friendly way? We look at the first principle from a physical point of view instead of the way we have always done. We have found that we can actually use table salt, sodium chloride, for lithium ka towa originally from ore. To the best of my knowledge no one has done this before.
He did not give further details about the process, and the comment is already raising some eyebrows in the lithium industry.
But the big news is that Tesla plans to protect itself with lithium.
The CEO confirmed that he received a lithium claim in Nevada:
“We got a lithium claim deposit in Nevada – more than 10,000 acres.”
Nevada is believed to have a large reserve of libitum that is still not being exploited in volume.
Lithium America is by far one of the leading companies in the development of mining operations in the region.
Musk said Tesla was considering minimizing the environmental impact of mining:
“We take a piece of dirt from the soil, add lithium and put the amount of dirt back where it was. It will look the same as before. “
Tesla did not offer a clear timeline on starting and operating its mining operations.
However, it indicates that it plans to increase battery cell production to 10 GWh next year, 100 GWh in 2023 and 3,00 GWh in 2030.
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