| Title | Tesla Lithium Refinery in Texas is a First for a U.S. Automaker | |
| Date | Wednesday May 17, @07:54AM | |
| Author | hubie | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
In a first among United States automakers, Tesla will begin refining its own lithium, a critical material for electric vehicle batteries.
The company broke ground on a $375 million lithium refining plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, this week, which CEO Elon Musk said will process enough lithium for 1 million vehicles annually.
"We thought it was important to address ... a fundamental choke point in the advancement of electric vehicles, [which] is the availability of battery-grade lithium," Musk said at the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday.
[...] Over the last year, the Biden administration has directed billions of dollars to automakers, materials processors, and start-up companies to help address this gap in domestic battery manufacturing. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last August, also adjusted the Clean Vehicle Tax Credit so that eligible vehicles must meet certain battery sourcing requirements, with materials largely coming from the U.S. or free-trade-agreement partners.
Tesla processing its own lithium will help ensure the company's vehicles qualify for those credits and will protect it from supply chain fluctuations and geopolitical disruptions. While it is the only U.S. automaker with a plan to refine its own lithium so far, General Motors announced in January that it would invest $650 million in the Thacker Pass lithium mining project in Nevada.
Tesla claims its refining process is more environmentally friendly and will consume 20 percent less energy than conventional methods. It will also produce less-toxic byproducts that could be repurposed in construction materials, the company said. "We end up as a net environmentally very neutral site," said Turner Caldwell, senior manager of battery minerals and metals at Tesla. The company estimates construction on the Texas plant will conclude in 2025.
[...] Caldwell said that while the Texas facility's lithium will originally come from hardrock mines, the process is designed to be "feed flexible," meaning it could in the future refine lithium from recycled sources, such as manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries.
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printed from SoylentNews, Tesla Lithium Refinery in Texas is a First for a U.S. Automaker on 2023-05-23 22:56:10