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Cost management master Musk, also forced into a corner by the rise in lithium metal prices, had to choose to mine himself.
Eliminate the need for middlemen to earn the difference, and those who can do it themselves will not hesitate.
Sticking to first principles, yes, that's musk.
And you may not think that in the matter of lithium mining, Musk's hands are faster than his mouth.
Musk to be a lithium miner?
The cause of the matter has to start from a lithium metal price trend chart posted by the statistics website World of Statistics on Twitter.
The pictures show that from 2012 to 2022, prices increased by more than 17 times in 11 years.
The fastest growing stage is the time of the sharp expansion of the new energy vehicle market, the data shows that the price of lithium metal in 2020 is only 6800 US dollars (equivalent to about 43,000 yuan) / ton, by 2022 the price has grown to 78032 US dollars (equivalent to about 500,000 yuan) / ton.
In two years, the price of lithium metal has more than 11 times.
This growth trend is frightening, and Musk can't sit still, replying below the tweet:
The price of lithium has risen to crazy levels! If the cost of mining does not increase, Tesla may actually have to go directly into large-scale mining and refining.
At the same time, Musk also explained the real reason for the soaring price of lithium metal: the reserves are enough, but the mining and refining is difficult for a long period.
Speaking of which, another flag of Musk has been set.
But this time is different from the past, this time, Musk is in front of the action, his own mining and refining, has always been one of the directions of Tesla to reduce the cost of batteries.
As early as early 2020, Tesla was preparing to acquire mining company Cypress Development to obtain lithium resources, but ultimately failed to reach an acquisition agreement, resulting in the aborted plan.
In June of that year, Musk revealed to the outside world that Tesla was building its own lithium metal refining plant and had won a 10,000-acre lithium mining right in Nevada.
Three months later, Tesla signed a lithium supply agreement with Australian lithium producer Piemont Lithium Limited, where Tesla will purchase one-third of the planned 160,000 tons of Piedmont Lithium spodumene concentrate at a fixed price over five years, with deliveries expected to begin between July 2022 and July 2023.
After a pass operation, from ore mining to refining, self-developed and self-made 4680 batteries, Musk has long laid out the entire industrial chain in the field of power batteries.
The ins and outs are clear, but what is the difficulty in lithium metal mining and extraction that Musk said?
Why is it difficult to mine and refine lithium metal?
The difficulty is in 3 places:
The first is that although lithium is abundant, there are not many that can be used and unevenly distributed.
According to USGS (United States Geological Survey) data, the world's proven lithium resource reserves reached 85.51 million tons in 2020, and if calculated according to this reserve, it can be consumed by 100 million electric vehicles for 86 years.
In terms of type distribution, there are five main forms of existence: closed basin brine (salt lake), spodumene, lithium clay, oilfield water-based brine, geothermal brine and lithium zeolite.
However, considering the cost, mining difficulty and other factors, the current industry is mainly based on spodumene and salt lakes as the main source of mining, and spodumene has become the first choice due to high lithium content and short mining cycle.
At present, although lithium extraction in salt lakes has become a hot spot in the industry, it is still used as an incremental and backup option.
Specific to the spodumene mine, the global proven spodumene reserves in 2020 account for only 26% of all lithium resources, that is, 22.23 million tons.
And from a global perspective, lithium ore resources that meet large-scale, high-grade, easy-to-mine conditions are currently mainly distributed in Australia, far from the world's major electric vehicle market.
Therefore, in the long run, with the continuous expansion of the new energy vehicle market, the demand for lithium batteries continues to increase, and the price of lithium metal rises, which will be a long-term trend.
The second is the long project cycle.
Taking lithium extraction in salt lakes as an example, the entire extraction process needs to go through multiple processes such as drying and sedimentation, and the time span is generally 12-18 months, at least more than one year. If you add the project development cycle, it will take 8-10 years.
The spodumene project, from excavation to formal production, is generally about 2-3 years.
The rapid development of the electric vehicle market has caught the lithium metal production capacity side off guard, and it is two or three years after the new mine is opened and the mining conditions are reached.
The tight supply and demand caused by this time dislocation is also one of the factors that will cause lithium prices to soar in the short term.
In addition to the time cost, there is also the processing cost between the lithium raw ore and the battery-grade lithium compound.
Take the battery grade lithium carbonate, according to the calculation of Guojin Securities, assuming that the price of spodumene concentrate is 3240 yuan / ton, 8 tons of spodumene concentrate pair can produce 1 ton of battery-grade lithium carbonate, corresponding to the cost of raw materials 25920 yuan / ton, spodumene processing costs, including labor, materials, depreciation and other expenses, at least 20,000 yuan / ton, comprehensive spodumene lithium production of 1 ton of battery-grade lithium carbonate cost of 45920 yuan / ton.
In other words, if you want to process the lithium in the ore into a material available for lithium batteries, the intermediate cost accounts for nearly half.
Coupled with black swan factors such as epidemic and war, whether it is raw ore mining or intermediate processing, the cost is rising.
It is no wonder that this price rally can make Musk call "crazy" and lay out the entire power battery industry chain by himself, at least eliminating the capital surcharge of middlemen.
Lithium-ion batteries, is there an alternative?
Pure electric vehicles are the trend, but lithium is both difficult to dig and costly.
So if electric vehicles want to get rid of lithium metal, is there any other way out?
Hydrogen fuel cells count as one.
Using hydrogen as a power source, combustion emissions are one of the cleanest sources of energy in addition to water and oxygen.
However, hydrogen fuel cells, at present, in terms of hydrogen production costs and storage and transportation stability, have not yet reached the conditions for large-scale commercial landing.
Taking the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen (that is, the really clean blue hydrogen) as an example, the current domestic production cost is about 20-60 yuan per kilogram.
From the perspective of endurance and calorific value, taking the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle as an example, the maximum hydrogen storage capacity is 5.6 kg, the maximum endurance is 850 kilometers, if you do not consider the intermediate transportation cost, the fuel cost per kilometer is about 1.3 yuan - 4 yuan, which is much higher than the cost of fuel vehicles, not to mention pure electric vehicles.
Since the cost can not be passed, sodium-ion batteries may be considered.
Sodium-ion batteries, and lithium batteries work on the same principle, but the substance responsible for transporting electrons, from lithium ions to sodium ions.
Previously, one of the most criticized points of sodium-ion batteries is that sodium ions are relatively larger in size, resulting in smaller energy density than lithium-ion batteries, and the endurance is not optimistic under the condition that the unit volume is certain.
But the current efforts of the industry are gradually dissolving this fatal weakness:
The most representative is the Ningde era, released in July last year the first generation of sodium-ion batteries, energy density reached the industry's highest 160Wh / kg, has been close to the current mainstream lithium iron phosphate battery, and at the end of last year completed the industrial layout of sodium-ion batteries, ready to put into production.
More importantly, sodium is abundant in the world, the difficulty of mining is extremely small, whether from the price or time period point of view, is an excellent material to replace lithium metal.
Therefore, compared with personal mining, studying sodium-ion batteries is a more thorough way to solve the problem.
Speaking of which, does Musk really not consider starting a sodium-ion battery company?
—Ends—
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