A little over a year ago, during the Tesla period At the 2019 shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk said the company "could enter the business of mining minerals used in electric vehicle batteries."
Today, during Tesla's so-called Battery Day event, Musk confirmed that the company is officially entering the mining business.
Tesla secured the rights to a 10,000-acre lithium clay deposit in Nevada, Musk said at the event.
The lithium mine is only part of Tesla's larger plan to build a cheaper and more efficient battery that will ultimately allow it to lower the price of its vehicles. It's also another example of Tesla bringing its supply chain closer to home.
Musk and Drew Baglino, SVP of Tesla's powertrain and energy engineering, laid out the company's plans and progress to eventually have 10 to 20 terawatt-hours of annual battery production. At the heart of that floor is a new cardless battery cell that the company unveiled at the event. But Baglino and Musk have outlined other pieces of this larger mission, including a new production system that is still under development and plans to build infrastructure to support it.
The lithium mine and a cathode facility, both in North America, will be two new additions to Tesla's growing portfolio of factories and operations.
"We will go and start building our cathode facility in North America and by harnessing all existing North American resources for nickel and lithium, and by doing this only by locating our cathode supply and manufacturing chain, we can reduce the miles traveled on all materials. that end up in the cathode of 80%, "Baglino said.
Alongside the cathode plant there will be a lithium conversion plant, according to Baglino, who added that the company is working on a new sulfate-free process that he believes will cut lithium costs by 33%.
It is not clear where the cathode implant will be located. However, if the goal is to bring the supply chain closer, it could end up being next to the lithium clay batch that Tesla recently bought the mining rights on.
The extraction of the reactive alkali metal has an environmental cost. But Musk says the company has found a better process. Traditionally, lithium mining requires a lot of water. The miners will drill a hole in the ground and pump the brine to the surface where it is then allowed to evaporate. What remains is a mix of minerals such as manganese and lithium salts. Those continue to be filtered until the lithium can be extracted.
Musk said they have a new process that can extract lithium from the ore using sodium chloride or table salt.
"No one has ever done this before, as far as I know, no one has," Musk said, adding that all elements of the process are reusable. "It's a very sustainable way to get lithium." He then said that the land where the extraction will take place "will be more or less the same as before".
