Tag: Tesla

Australian-based battery materials company Liontown Resources Limited (ASX: LTR) has entered into a legally binding sales and purchase term sheet with electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla for the supply of spodumene concentrate. The Agreement is for the supply of up to 150,000 dry metric tonnes (DMT) per annum of spodumene concentrate to be produced at Liontown’s Kathleen Valley Lithium Project in Western Australia and is expected to commence in 2024, representing approximately one-third of the Project’s start-up SC6.0 production capacity of ~500ktpa. Kathleen Valley is a new, globally significant, lithium development project located 680km north-east of Perth in Western Australia’s premier mining district. Underpinned by a world-class lithium deposit with a Mineral Resource Estimate of 156Mt at 1.4% Li2O and 130ppm...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company is officially entering the mining business. Making the announcement at Tesla’s Battery Day, Mr Musk said the rights to a 10,000-acre lithium clay deposit in Nevada had been secured. The possibility had been flagged at last year’s shareholder’s meeting, when it was teased that Tesla “might get into the business of mining minerals used in electric vehicle batteries”. The lithium mine not only lets Tesla build a cheaper, more efficient battery that will ultimately allow it to lower the price of its vehicles, but also will bring its supply chain closer to its home. Mr Musk and Drew Baglino, the SVP of powertrain and energy engineering at Tesla, laid out the...

SHARES in lithium have soared, with Galaxy Resources up 24pc, Orocobre Ltd up 34pc and Pilbara Minerals posting a rise of 19pc. Mineral Resources also increased 2.4pc to $17.39. The boost for the lithium market comes as the Chinese government announced yesterday that it would hold back on reducing subsidies to the electric vehicle industry. Industry and Information technology Minister Miao Wei said that the subsidies, which have been cut steadily since 2018, will not be cut this July. This follows a marked drop in sales of electric vehicles since the subsidies, first introduced in 2009, began to be phased out. The surge is also hitched to Tesla’s delivery of its first Chinese made Model 3 cars. Tesla has revealed...

BY CAMERON DRUMMOND   LITHIUM developer Kidman Resources is the first Australian miner to sign an offtake agreement with Elon Musk’s Tesla.   Kidman entered into a binding agreement to supply lithium hydroxide to the electric vehicle maker over an initial three year term on a fixed price, take-or-pay basis. Kidman and Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), under their Western Australia Lithium (WAL) 50:50 joint venture, are building a lithium hydroxide plant in Kwinana, south of Perth, to process spodumene concentrate from their Mt Holland hard rock lithium project. According to Kidman, the Tesla offtake deal equates to less than 25 per cent of Kidman’s proportion of output from the proposed 44,000tpa refinery. Other commercial terms of the...

Image: Tesla. By Cameron Drummond ONE of the best performing commodities of 2016 was undoubtedly lithium, burgeoned by Tesla Motor’s construction of a lithium-ion battery gigafactory in the Nevada desert, which it fired up in the first week of this year. Tesla, partnering with Japanese electronics company Panasonic, predicts that the factory will be producing 35 gigawatts (GW) of lithium-ion batteries each year by 2018 for use in electric vehicles (EV’s) and energy storage systems – double the rest of the world’s current production rate. Lithium has a range of commercial and industrial uses, such as the manufacture of glassware and ceramics; though by far the fastest growing application is for batteries. Technological advancements in battery-making had seen the spot...