Tesla made an important announcement today in Texas, revealing it is breaking ground on a new in-house lithium refinery, located outside of Corpus Christi, Texas.
“Increasing lithium refining capacity is critical to a sustainable energy economy—today, we’re breaking ground on our in-house lithium refinery outside of Corpus Christi, TX,” said Tesla.
“This facility will also prioritize the elimination of a challenging refinery byproduct (sodium sulfate),” said the company. “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.”
“In the future, we will also process other intermediate lithium feedstocks, including those from recycled batteries & manufacturing scrap,” said Tesla.
On hand at the announcement was CEO Elon Musk and also Cybertruck, set to be produced at Giga Texas later this year. We see Cybertruck outfitted with a bed accessory seen for the first time, as Musk drives the Cybertruck on stage and exits from the vehicle.
Musk said Tesla expects to produce enough lithium for 1 million vehicles, and produce more battery-grade lithium than the rest of the North American refining capacity—combined. This will be one of the biggest lithium refineries in the world.
Check out the video replay below–and listen to Texas Governor Greg Abbott call the Cybertruck the Tesla “Gigatruck” by mistake:
