Tesla to mine own battery metals

Tesla has revealed at its Tesla Battery Day that the company is planning to break into the battery metals mining business.

Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk and manufacturing industry executive Drew Baglino said that the company had acquired the rights to a 10,000 acre lithium clay deposit in Nevada. They also disclosed that Tesla intended to build its own cathode plant and lithium conversion facility.

This is part of Tesla's plan to be self-sufficient, significantly reducing costs and the hundreds of kilometers that need to be travelled before materials used in electric vehicles (EVs) manufacturing can reach the company.

"We're going to go and start building our own cathode facility in North America, leveraging all of the North American resources that exist for nickel and lithium," Baglino said."Just doing that and localizing our cathode supply chain and production we can reduce the miles travelled by all of the materials that end up in the cathode by 80 per cent, which is huge for cost.Asian Metal Copyright"Just doing that and localizing our cathode supply chain and production we can reduce the miles travelled by all of the materials that end up in the cathode by 80 per cent, which is huge for cost.Asian Metal Copyright This process enables simpler mining and simpler recycling."

.Asian Metal Copyright "We're going to go and start building our own cathode facility in North America, leveraging all of the North American resources that exist for nickel and lithium," Baglino saidAsian Metal Copyright