Billionaire Elon Musk suggested that his electric car company, “Tesla”, may enter into the business of directly and large-scale lithium mining and refining, a major component in the manufacture of batteries.
He explained on “Twitter” that he may resort to this step because the cost of lithium metal rose significantly after the launch of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in late February.
“The price of lithium has gone crazy, there is no shortage of the same element, as lithium is found almost everywhere on Earth, but the pace of extraction and improvement is slow,” Musk wrote in a tweet to him, yesterday, Friday.
Price of lithium has gone to insane levels! Tesla might actually have to get into the mining & refining directly at scale, unless costs improve.
There is no shortage of the element itself, as lithium is almost everywhere on Earth, but pace of extraction/refinement is slow.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2022
Lithium is an important component in electric car batteries, because it is the lightest metal and the least solid in terms of density, meaning that lithium batteries have a high energy-to-weight ratio, which is important when dealing with transportation.
In his tweet, Elon Musk revealed his thinking about entering the lithium industry in response to another tweet that showed the average price of lithium per ton over the past two decades, which showed a massive increase in prices since 2021.
According to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the cost of lithium metal has risen more than 480 percent in the past year.