Elon Musk Says Tesla May Get Into Lithium Mining

Last Friday (8), while awaiting analysis of his Twitter board acceptance, Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed another area he plans to move into with his electric car factory using the social network: lithium mining. For the billionaire, this is necessary because the price of the alkali metal has “reached crazy levels”.

The tweet was sent in response to a post by Statistics World on their microblog. a 1.753% increase in the value of one tonne of lithium Between 2012 (US$4.45k) and current US$78.03k (R$365.5k). Musk assures that “as lithium is almost everywhere on Earth, there is no deficiency in the element itself, but the rate of extraction and refining is slow.”

Lithium price has reached insane levels! Tesla may have to go directly into the mining and refining business at scale unless costs increase.

Since lithium is almost everywhere on Earth, there is no shortage of the element itself, but the extraction/healing rate is slow.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2022

Lithium remains unbeatable

Musk’s concern is old. For several years now, researchers have been developing batteries for the sodium ion, another naturally occurring alkali metal. at least 300 times that of lithium. However, its lighter batteries are unrivaled when it comes to energy density.

The idea of ​​lithium mining is not new to Tesla either. A report of the journal in 2020 luck It turned out that the Texas company, quoting “people familiar with the matter”, bought the lithium mining rights in the US state of Nevada. According to sources, Elon Musk’s company made the decision after its failed attempt to acquire mining company Cypress Development.