At a time when Tesla is expanding its production capacity, soaring lithium prices have become a "roadblock", and lithium prices have soared by 490% in the past year. On April 8, 2022, Musk said that lithium ore resources are not lacking, there are everywhere on the earth, tesla or have to directly carry out large-scale mining and refining business, unless the cost pressure is alleviated.
Musk personally mined, these few words out, you guess how much Dogecoin will rise? Jokes are jokes! So, Musk personally went down to dig the lithium mine, how feasible is it? Can it effectively alleviate the price of lithium?
First, I have to say: the global lithium mine, in fact, has completed the race
Purely from the perspective of lithium supply, whether it is Tesla or not, the domestic automobile industry, battery companies or lithium mining companies, in fact, the situation is the same.
At present, the largest reserves of lithium ore in China are several large salt lakes in the Qaidam Basin, of which the lithium carbonate of the Qarhan Salt Lake reaches 12 million tons. Coupled with a few such as Yiliping Salt Lake, Dongtai Jinai, etc., the reserves can reach 16 million tons.
However, unfortunately, the large enterprises that should go in at present have long been completed. Abroad are the lithium mines in Australia and the dry salt lakes in South America, which together have hundreds of millions of tons of mines.
The problem is that China's lithium mines have been basically circled by major enterprises, while Australian lithium mines are basically controlled by Chinese and American companies. There is also the lithium triangle in South America, now see the interests, can not move to engage in domestic production, whose face is not given.
And then what? The production capacity of China and Australia has been stretched to the limit, while the infrastructure in South America is very backward, and it is still necessary to engage in localization, and the impact of the epidemic is not deep or shallow, and it is difficult to move forward.
Don't say how good Tesla is, how rich Musk is. Let's look at the stock market, Tianqi Lithium, Ganfeng Lithium, etc., whose market value is not hundreds of billions? Where is the Lord of bad money?
There are also Ningde era, BYD, etc., will they be poor in money? And it's not just about money.
Second, the key question: how expensive is it to extract it? How much time does it take? How much upfront investment?
The abundance of lithium in the earth's crust is 0.0065%, and you randomly dig a stone that may contain lithium, but can you extract lithium? Theoretically, yes, but the cost is frighteningly high.
When we mine lithium, we also need to find "lithium mines", and the best lithium mines in the world (spodumene mines) are also located in Western Australia, what is the average grade? Only about 2%. This grade means that the cost of extracting lithium from nature is very high.
And China's largest mine lithium resources are located in Yichun district of Jiangxi Province (lithium mica), the average grade of ore is only 0.3%, that is to say, you have to dig 300 tons of ore to extract 1 ton of lithium, in addition to the cost of refining, mine construction costs, the cost of digging stones, the remaining waste disposal costs, local environmental pressure, etc., and so on, when you produce lithium, you may lose money and go bankrupt.
Tesla if you want to enter the field of lithium resources at this time, the most appropriate way is to buy stocks directly in the secondary market, the largest lithium resource company in the United States is called "Yabao", the company has the world's best lithium resources in Western Australia and South America, the company's New York Stock Exchange stock code: ALB.
ALB's current total market value is only 25 billion US dollars, Tesla's current cash flow is relatively abundant, buy 10% is also 2.5 billion US dollars, it is not difficult. In fact, BYD, a leading domestic new energy vehicle company, strategically invested in an A-share lithium resource company some time ago to ensure the supply of lithium resources. From the perspective of business logic, Tesla does need to open up the upstream industrial chain and reduce the risk of raw material supply.
As for Musk himself, such a project, even at home, will take two years; if no one in foreign countries has given you the focus on doing great things, then you will be in vain.
Third, the essence behind it: the reason why Musk wants to enter the mining of lithium
Recently, Musk bought some shares in Twitter, the products sold well, and he became more and more confident in speaking. There is no shortage of lithium resources in the world, but the problem is that with the deepening of global new energy penetration, the horse racing circle is basically finished, and the confrontation with you Musk is not bad money.
It can be seen that from the perspective of the back of the problem, the reason why Musk wants to enter the mining of lithium:
Tesla delivered more than 310,000 units worldwide in the first quarter, and produced more than 305,000 units, an increase of 67.7% year-on-year. Now orders have to wait at least 2-3 months, the product is in short supply, and the market is expected to perform very well. In 2021, Tesla was limited by production capacity, sold nearly one million cars, and achieved a 20% sales share in the pure electric field.
As a result, Musk set a somewhat distant target of 20% of the global automotive market. The premise of achieving this goal must be to stabilize the cost of the battery, after all, the three-year-long rise of 370,000 Model Y is already exaggerated.
As a digression, Musk's flag that year: sending 80,000 people to Mars, achieving full automatic driving, launching 42,000 Starchain satellites, and assembling robotaxi's self-driving taxi fleet, few have a spectrum.
Recently, the Model 3 was widely recalled, and the stall event caused by the inverter was boiling over. The brake door has been searched 100 times + in half a year, and it still sells 1 million vehicles + in 5 years, which is enough to see Tesla's brand power.
I hope Tesla understands: the greater the capability, the greater the responsibility. With energy tossing, can you improve the product first and take care of your own users.
Final words: This is actually a big thing, today's lithium resources are like the original oil, a strong industrial path dependence will continue to increase its price, reach a critical point, and then soar.
According to Musk's first principles thinking: return to the most basic conditions of things, split them into various elements for deconstructive analysis, so as to find a way to achieve the optimal path to the goal. Then he most likely has to solve the battery: directly mining himself or reinventing a new battery type: sodium battery, aluminum battery, etc.
Although there are other alternative technologies such as sodium batteries, the high energy density of lithium batteries themselves is also difficult to replace, and we can only hope that Musk can do some black technology to better refine lithium.