Photo: ODD ANDERSEN / AFP / Getty Images
For: Klon Perez Updated 20 Apr 2022, 18 : pm EDT
The price of lithium produced in China continues without stopping its price rise and has increased 126 % in one year, making battery manufacturing complicated. In 2020 the ton was paid at $6, 800 dollars, now it does not drop below $ 80, Dollars.
Tesla co-founder and leader Elon Musk showed their concern and has made it clear that the company should focus on the extraction and refining of lithium. Two years ago the company announced that it could lower costs by extracting lithium in Nevada.
The price of lithium has reached levels crazy! Tesla may have to get into mining and refining directly at scale, unless costs improve. There is no shortage of the element itself, as lithium is found almost everywhere on Earth, but the rate of extraction and refinement is slow
Elon Musk
The fact is that currently, importing such a fundamental raw material from China could generate tension in the supply chain and continue to increase its price. This makes manufacturers very dependent and vulnerable.
Raw materials represent more than 80 % of the cost of a lithium ion battery. In just seven years this industry has multiplied tenfold.
The head of Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, Simon Moores, hinted in recent days that electric car makers should become miners, or buy mines for chemical conversion capacity.
If #EVs are lithium ion batteries then EVs are mining.
Battery prices have gone up because *allkey raw material prices have gone up by over 80% since Jan 2020, esp #Lithium & #nickel
The only true way to control your raw material cost is to own the mines, Z @elonmusk says: pic.twitter.com/LPtMn905Zg
— Simon Moores (@sdmoores) April 12, 2022
Ford is another company that is already focused on building its own supply chains, in fact it has just signed an agreement with the lithium producer Lake Resources to produce each year 25 one thousand tons of high purity lithium. The Chinese giant BYD also reached an agreement with the mining company Chengxin Lithium.
For now, Tesla continues to import raw materials from other suppliers. The nickel comes from Western Australia, and the lithium from China.
You may also like:
–GMC will introduce a new Canyon truck this summer: What do you know
–The Toyota Crown could be the most expensive hybrid SUV on the market
–Why today is better to buy an electric car in the US
–What you should know about the types of batteries for your car and their useful life
–What is known about the Ford Mustang 2024
-What are the different types of tires that a car can have
–Meet the Nissan LEAF: why it is one of the best electric cars