On December 16, Tesla announced that its new lithium refinery in Texas has officially begun operations. The project, which broke ground over a year ago, started processing raw materials in its furnaces on December 15, according to a post from Tesla’s North American official account on X. This also marks Tesla as the only automaker in North America to refine lithium on its own.
As Tesla officials stated: “This investment is critical to our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and represents our efforts to aggressively increase the supply of battery-grade lithium hydroxide available in North America.”
Located on the outskirts of Corpus Christi, the facility is the first large-scale battery-grade lithium refinery in the US, and the first industrial-scale application of non-acid lithium refining technology. Tesla explained that the non-acid refining process generates only a mixture of sand and limestone as byproducts, which can be used to produce construction materials. “In the future, we expect this facility to also process other intermediate lithium feedstocks, including recycled batteries and manufacturing scrap,” Tesla officials said.
Once fully operational, the refinery is expected to produce approximately 50 GWh of battery-grade lithium annually.
Tesla’s main lithium suppliers currently include Ganfeng Lithium, Albemarle, Livent, and Yahua Group. In June this year, Tesla also signed a three-year lithium salt deal with Yahua Group. Under the agreement, Ya’an Lithium, Yahua’s subsidiary, will supply Tesla with lithium carbonate from 2025 to 2027, with the option to extend the agreement until December 31, 2028, subject to mutual agreement.
Source: WeChat Official Account—马里亚纳锂电
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