Tesla just lately held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new lithium refinery in Texas, throughout which CEO Elon Musk rolled up in a fully-outfitted Cybertruck. Due out this yr, Musk’s model of the futuristic truck included a sporty new instrument rack on the again, as noticed for the primary time on the occasion.
A glance inside Tesla’s Cybertruck inside. (Supply: Tesla)
Tesla shared a livestream of the occasion, which included Musk, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the U.S. Division of Power Undersecretary Kathleen Hogan, and Nueces County Decide Connie Scott. The brand new lithium manufacturing unit is positioned simply outdoors Corpus Christi, Texas, round 217 miles from Austin, the house of Tesla’s Worldwide HQ and Gigafactory Texas.
Apparently, the Cybertruck included a instrument rack grille on each facet rails of the electrical pickup’s mattress and some shovels hooked up to the metallic grille. The shovels additionally had a low-poly design just like the Cybertruck.
Up to now, Elon Musk has promised that the Cybertruck can be a helpful pickup truck for area staff. The instrument rack exhibits one possibility for what this might appear like.
The Tesla neighborhood has began referring to those custom-designed shovels as Cybershovels. The company additionally used the shovels to take part within the lithium manufacturing unit’s groundbreaking. The rack may make it to manufacturing as an add-on for the Cybertruck and will ultimately be bought individually.
Tesla Lithium Refinery In Texas
Through the occasion, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Division of Power Undersecretary Kathleen Hogan celebrated Tesla’s newest funding in Texas. The manufacturing unit is anticipated to carry extra engineering and technical jobs to the state, the town of Corpus Christi, and Nueces County.
“It is a nice day for Nueces County. Chances are you’ll keep in mind I used to be right here a month or two in the past and I used to be talkin’ about the best way that you just’re gonna see a wave of jobs coming to Corpus Christi and Nueces County,” Governor Abbott stated.
“This is only one of many tasks that can be offering these jobs that can elevate Corpus Christi and Nueces Nation, Robstown, your complete space far far more. Congratulations on this large success,” the Texas governor added.
In accordance with Elon Musk, Tesla’s lithium refinery in Texas will be capable of produce lithium for about one million autos. This manufacturing unit alone can have the capability to supply extra battery-grade lithium than the manufacturing of your complete North American refineries mixed.
“As you may see, we’ve bought the Earth-moving tools already right here, so we’re going to start development instantly. We’re aiming to complete development subsequent yr after which attain hopefully full manufacturing a yr later,” Musk stated.
Musk clarified that Tesla intends to proceed utilizing its lithium suppliers, including that this lithium refinery is making ready to fulfill the corporate’s future calls for. He additionally famous that lithium is a quite common Earth ore, however that making it battery-grade is industrially intensive. Crucially, Musk added, battery-grade lithium must be fully freed from any impurities. In any other case, the battery will degrade extra rapidly than anticipated.
“We’ve bought quite a lot of improvements we expect can be fairly efficient within the refining of lithium that haven’t been finished earlier than,” Elon Musk stated.
Turner Caldwell, Sr Supervisor of Battery Minerals & Metals at Tesla, defined how the method of manufacturing lithium at this Tesla refinery will differ from typical strategies. In accordance with Caldwell, lithium refining is a chemical course of that requires heavy use of sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide. The normal methods produce byproducts which might be of little use later, akin to sodium sulfate.
Contemplating sustainability, Tesla has invented its personal strategies of refining lithium. Turner Caldwell defined the method in a little bit of element as follows:
“What we’re going to be utilizing are far more inert reagents, we’ll be consuming soda ash sodium carbonate quite common industrial chemical.
“We’ll be consuming lime, once more a quite common industrial chemical and it’s a way more direct route that consumes 20% much less power all in.
“It consumes reagents which might be 60% less expensive and all within the manufacturing price is 30% decrease on a unit price foundation.
“However the actual key factor right here is the byproduct that’s produced is far more inert. It’s mainly a mixture of sand and limestone.
“And the workforce right here has been working actually exhausting on discovering helpful use alternatives for that sand and limestone to attempt to feed that into development supplies.
“In order that we find yourself with as a web environmentally very impartial web site.”
You possibly can watch Tesla’s full lithium groundbreaking occasion beneath, full with the Cybertruck instrument rack grille.
Initially posted on EVANNEX & Tesla Oracle. By @IqtidarAlii.
Join day by day information updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or observe us on Google Information!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, need to promote, or need to recommend a visitor for our CleanTech Speak podcast? Contact us right here.
Former Tesla Battery Skilled Main Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Period — Podcast:
I do not like paywalls. You do not like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Right here at CleanTechnica, we carried out a restricted paywall for some time, nevertheless it all the time felt fallacious — and it was all the time robust to determine what we should always put behind there. In principle, your most unique and greatest content material goes behind a paywall. However then fewer individuals learn it! We simply do not like paywalls, and so we have determined to ditch ours.
Sadly, the media enterprise continues to be a troublesome, cut-throat enterprise with tiny margins. It is a unending Olympic problem to remain above water and even maybe — gasp — develop. So …
If you happen to like what we do and need to assist us, please chip in a bit month-to-month through PayPal or Patreon to assist our workforce do what we do!
Thanks!
