Tesla started building a lithium refinery in Robstown, Texas, in May 2023. In December 2024, the company announced that the facility was up and running, Teslarati reported.
The recipe of an electric vehicle relies on one crucial ingredient: a battery, which holds all the electricity that powers the vehicle. All kinds of minerals and metals are used to create these batteries, but lithium is one of the most common.
The large-scale Texas refinery's primary output is battery-grade lithium, the first of its kind on U.S. soil. Once fully ramped up, the company expects the facility to produce enough lithium for about 50 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity per year, as Teslarati and Chemical & Engineering News reported.
To put that in perspective, 50 GWh could be enough juice to power at least 500,000 electric vehicles, per C&EN. This milestone is significant in establishing a domestic EV supply chain in the U.S., as the news outlets explained.
A healthy EV market is good news for drivers, who can save big on fuel and maintenance costs. It's a win for the planet, too, since more EVs on the road can mean less pollution in the sky from cars that run on dirty energy sources.
And that's not all. This refinery is also the first industrial application of an acid-free refining process, meaning it uses fewer hazardous materials in production, according to a press release.
The facility's byproducts — sand and limestone — can be reused as construction materials. Old batteries and other industrial scrap may be processed and recycled at the plant in the future as well, the company explained.
"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," the company wrote in the release.
The announcement made waves among Teslarati readers, too.
🗣️ If you were going to purchase an EV which of these factors would be most important to you?
🔘 Good driving range 🔋
🔘 Affordable sticker price 💰
🔘 High-tech safety features 😌
🔘 Cheap maintenance costs 🛠️
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
"That's some seriously good news," one commenter remarked.
"Pretty fast from ground breaking to opening," another added.
"Just a test batch for the kiln," a third pointed out. "It's a long way to being production ready. At least another 6-9 months."
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