Un-Noticed but Most important - Lithium.

[Garlan Garner]

Elon Musk made some crucial statements that seems to either bored most consumers to death or exceeded their technical savvy.

It was glaring to me to hear Elon Musk mention Lithium as much as he did. I heard him loud and clear. Tesla is going to HAVE TO BE the largest consumer of Lithium on the face of the planet.

Of course most of the people in this forum don't care about that - They just want their car.

The single most important part of any TESLA cars is the battery. Lithium ION batteries. These batteries are extremely light in weight compared to Nickel Cadmium or any other type of battery without sacrificing discharge rates. Latium is a natural resource. In other words....the earth produces it by itself and takes it time producing it. When looking at the volume of Model 3's ordered....I can't imagine where on earth TESLA is going to have to go to get Lithium in that quantity. 250+ cars worth? That's millions of tons of Latium that will have to be extracted from salt lakes.

I suppose the reason this has hit me so hard is that I'm converting my mower away from gasoline to electric utilizing Li Batteries and they are extremely expensive when compared to any other battery type.

Where in the world is TESLA going to get that much Lithium? Maybe that's what's going to take TESLA so long to produce these cars.
Elon was doing nothing but being honest about Lithium during the reveal.

 

[smilepak]

I'm with you on that. There are things we overlook that we use daily that requires rare material. Such as computer system components, they do e waste recycle in part trying to reuse some of these components. Melt it down and reuse.

I can't fathom the thought on battery. Ppl say using fossle fuel is bad, battery consumption also uses resources that is hard to obtain and ain't forever.

 

[S'toon]

They've signed exclusivity contracts with 2 lithium mines in the past year. One in Mexico, another somewhere in the US.

 

[eloder]

Lithium, by weight, is actually a relatively small part of a gigantic lithium ion battery. There are a number of other components that will serve as choke points on the supply chain.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I hope fracking is not a part of ELONs plan of excavation.

 

[Saghost]

The single most important part of any TESLA cars is the battery. Lithium ION batteries. These batteries are extremely light in weight compared to Nickel Cadmium or any other type of battery without sacrificing discharge rates. Latium is a natural resource. In other words....the earth produces it by itself and takes it time producing it. When looking at the volume of Model 3's ordered....I can't imagine where on earth TESLA is going to have to go to get Lithium in that quantity. 250+ cars worth? That's millions of tons of Latium that will have to be extracted from salt lakes.

Keep in mind, Lithium is only a tiny fraction of the total weight of a Lithium Ion battery pack. If I remember the discussion right, with the chemistry Tesla launched with the total Lithium content of the 85 kWh battery was something like 20 pounds? I know it was discussed extensively here a while back.

You're certainly right that Tesla is going to become one of the largest consumers of Lithium - I think that was part of why the Gigafactory ended up in Nevada, next to several sources of Lithium.

 

[Drivin]

I hope fracking is not a part of ELONs plan of excavation.

Project "L-Alpha Win"

L is for lithium

 

[Weezer Fan]

Should we be investing in companies that extract/produce Lithium?

 

[mikevbf]

Lithium, by weight, is actually a relatively small part of a gigantic lithium ion battery. There are a number of other components that will serve as choke points on the supply chain.

Tell us more ...

 

[Garlan Garner]

Should we be investing in companies that extract/produce Lithium?

O

I certainly am. Like the Bolt or not - Chevy ( General Motors ) is going to be vying for Lithium as well.

 

[Weezer Fan]

O

I certainly am. Like the Bolt or not - Chevy ( General Motors ) is going to be vying for Lithium as well.

who?

 

[DrPhoton]

Don't worry, new sources of Lithium are going to come on line soon:
NYTimes: Lithium Producer Chases Tesla's Bold Battery Plan

 

[calisnow]

...
It was glaring to me to hear Elon Musk mention Lithium as much as he did. I heard him loud and clear. Tesla is going to HAVE TO BE the largest consumer of Lithium on the face of the planet....Where in the world is TESLA going to get that much Lithium? Maybe that's what's going to take TESLA so long to produce these cars.

You seem pretty agitated OP - go ahead and please state your point - which you haven't - you've only implied it.

You, internet poster on car forum, do not have the knowledge of where Tesla will obtain enough lithium. This bothers you, and you leap to the conclusion that Tesla doesn't know either!

You, oh prophet, have seen the major problem THAT NOBODY ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT - WHERE THE **** WILL THE LITHIUM COME FROM?

Will somebody please get this genius to Tesla HQ so he can inform the board of a huge problem they haven't anticipated?

I can picture the scene now. The OP rushes into HQ breathless shouting "Somebody get Elon on the phone! I must speak to Elon! You're building the largest battery factory in the world but have you considered where your lithium will come from? You FOOLS - how could you overlook this problem? I have big evidence that lithium is hard to obtain - my lawnmower batteries cost me a small fortune!"

Cut to scene of Elon Musk thanking the OP profusely for catching this major "whoops" in Tesla Motors' business plan.

Final scene in movie: Elon Musk holds press conference with the OP standing next to him. "Uh, world. Thanks to Garlan Garner we are announcing a pause in our plans. We called up the contractor and told him to send his construction crew home for a couple weeks at the battery factory while we sort out where to obtain raw materials. I am so grateful for the brilliant minds at work over at Tesla Motors Club."

 

[Garlan Garner]

You seem pretty agitated OP - go ahead and please state your point - which you haven't - you've only implied it.

You, internet poster on car forum, do not have the knowledge of where Tesla will obtain enough lithium. This bothers you, and you leap to the conclusion that Tesla doesn't know either!

You, oh prophet, have seen the major problem THAT NOBODY ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT - WHERE THE F*CK WILL THE LITHIUM COME FROM?

Will somebody please get this genius to Tesla HQ so he can inform the board of a huge problem they haven't anticipated?

I can picture the scene now. The OP rushes into HQ breathless shouting "Somebody get Elon on the phone! I must speak to Elon! You're building the largest battery factory in the world but have you considered where your lithium will come from? You FOOLS - how could you overlook this problem? I have big evidence that lithium is hard to obtain - my lawnmower batteries cost me a small fortune!"

Cut to scene of Elon Musk thanking the OP profusely for catching this major "whoops" in Tesla Motors' business plan.

LOL....

 

[mblakele]

Lithium is pretty easy to find. It's roughly as common an copper or zinc or nitrogen, if not as common as silicon or aluminum.

Lithium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[calisnow]

LOL....

Sorry dude we can be hard on the new guys around here. Welcome to the club...

 

[BornToFly]

I believe Mars is completely made of Lithium, which is why Elon wants to go there.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I know where they can get lithium from - Hoverboards.

They are all catching on fire anyway - Unbalanced charging.

You can't overcharge Lithium like you can a car battery. I took my board apart and my li batteries were unbalanced. One was 36 volts and the other was 21 volts. Lithium batteries won't balance charge when connected in series like mine are. My 36volt battery was super hot when charging because after 3 hours of charging my 36volt battery reached 51 volts.

Anywhoo...sorry, this is a Tesla board.

 

[neroden]

This has been discussed on the investment forum before. Consensus is that lithium is easy to supply, but will require new mines. Graphite is also easy to supply; many think they'll have to switch to cheaper natural graphite, which would require new mines, but they might keep using petroleum graphite. Nobody seems to be worrying about aluminum, nickel, or silicon -- they probably won't require new mines. The biggest question mark is cobalt (which will definitely require new mines), followed by manganese (I'm not sure whether that will require new mines).

Tesla is well on its way to securing multiple lithium supplies. There are multiple large lithium deposits in *Nevada*. I haven't heard about cobalt, however -- if Tesla announces a cobalt deal, I think it'll be big news.

The reason we haven't discussed it for a while is that there has been absolutely no news.

 

[eloder]

The Bolt has one huge advantage over the 3; a year and a half head start. I assume Chevy has.actually started to build them, thus demonstrating they can deliver them.

Don't get me wrong, I've drunk the Tesla Kool Aid and have put my deposit in but, not everyone who wants a reasonably priced EV w/decent range wants to wait a year and a half plus, and the Bolt will be available way sooner.

Tell us more ...

Some people far more intelligent than me had a big thread about it at some point, I don't have the link but someone may have it if a search doesn't pull it up.