On Monday, Tesla, Inc. held a groundbreaking ceremony in Texas for its new lithium refinery. CEO Elon Musk stated it would produce adequate battery metal to build around a million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025. According to news outlets, the lithium refinery is also the largest in the world.
This facility is also part of plans to expand the company’s presence across the supply chain for EVs. It is set to start operating by 2024.
“As we look ahead a few years, a fundamental choke point in the advancement of electric vehicles is the availability of battery-grade lithium,” Musk said during the groundbreaking ceremony.
Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, was also present in the groundbreaking ceremony. He praised this project, saying it would make Texas self-reliant with lithium processing.
Meanwhile, Tesla will reportedly invest $375 million in the lithium refinery, which is specifically located in the city of Corpus Christi. The company is looking at utilizing a new lithium refining method that is more friendly to the environment since it does not produce sodium sulfate byproducts but instead uses sulfuric acid in the processes.
“Instead, the byproduct is a mixture of sand & calcium carbonate—a viable additive in the production of construction materials, allowing us to make use of this waste stream,” Tesla pointed out. “In the future, we will also process other intermediate lithium feedstocks, including those from recycled batteries & manufacturing scrap.”
But do you know the best thing that happened during that groundbreaking ceremony? It’s the presence of the highly anticipated Cybertruck by Tesla. It carried the shovels used in the ceremony. Yes, the Cybertruck graced the event.
Tesla’s Cybertruck is an upcoming battery electric light-duty truck with a sharp-edged exterior made of scratch- and dent-resistant stainless steel. Yes, it is tough. But that is not all. Together with the available all-wheel drive, the Cybertruck is capable of towing up to 14,000 pounds and features an estimated driving range of 500-plus miles.
The Cybertruck will be available later this year.
During the groundbreaking ceremony where the Cybertruck was shown, it built up the excitement even more as the vehicle looked more complete than in previous sightings. Different angles of the steel-exterior machine were seen.
Also, the enormous windscreen wiper was again seen in front of the Cybertruck.
Its presence during the ceremony also provided an up close and personal look at the rack mounted on the truck’s bed, used to carry the shovels for the groundbreaking.
Musk also spoke about the Cybertruck’s uniqueness. He said, “Well, I think we will save that for the Cybetruck handover, which will hopefully be at the end of Q3 this year. One thing I can confidently say is that it is an incredible product, it’s a hall of famer, I think. And a product like this only comes along once, once in a long while. People will not be disappointed in it at all. It’s amazing.”
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