Tesla breaks ground on Texas lithium refinery
In Texas, Reuters reported that EV manufacturer Tesla broke ground on a Texas lithium refinery. The firm’s CEO Elon Musk said the new facility should produce enough of the battery metal to build about 1 million electric vehicles by 2025. “As we look ahead a few years, a fundamental choke point in the advancement of electric vehicles is the availability of battery grade lithium,” Musk said at the ground-breaking ceremony earlier this week. Musk said Tesla aimed to finish construction of the factory in 2024 and then reach full production about a year later. Musk did not specify the volume of lithium the new refinery would process each year, although he said that Tesla would continue to buy lithium from its vendors, which include Albemarle Corp and Livent Corp. “We intend to continue to use suppliers of lithium, so it’s not that Tesla will do all of it,” Musk said.
