Elon Musk: Bring Me More Nickel
Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:08 amhttps://www.kitco.com/news/2020-07-23/E ... ickel.html
And the text of the article for when the link goes inactive (emphasis mine)...
Thursday July 23, 2020 17:40 (per Kitco News)
Electric vehicle visionary, Elon Musk, said he is asking mining companies to produce more nickel.
Musk made the comments during his second quarter earning call earlier this week.
Musk said miners will be offered a giant contract from Tesla if they mine nickel efficiently and in an "environmental way," according to note published by Tesmanian.
The CEO of Tesla will need more raw materials. Musk also announced during the call that his company’s next gigafactory will be built in Austin, Texas. Gigafactories manufacture batteries and cars. Tesla currently has Gigafactories in the U.S., Europe and China.
Earlier this year Tesla signed a contract with Glencore for cobalt. The company has been reportedly trying to limit dependence on the material to reduce cost and avoid reliance on a material that has links to worker exploitation and environmental degradation.
Cobalt's chemistry generally provide lithium-ion batteries with greater stability.
Green Car Reports that Tesla is moving to an alternate battery chemistry: energy-dense nickel-cobalt-aluminum for its Semi production.
“The nickel-based cells have higher energy density, so longer range; those are needed for something like a Semi, where every unit of mass that you add in you have to subtract in cargo,” said Musk during the earnings call.
End of article...
For those who can get any .999 Canadian nickel at a reasonable price, what are you waiting for? Nope- not selling now.
P.S. I am not an expert on all things nickel or a scientist, but my understanding is that the kind of nickel Musk needs for his battery operations is high purity nickel. High purity nickel typically comes from colder climates like Canada and Russia. The lower purity stuff (also called nickel pig iron) comes from warmer weather locations such as Indonesia and the Philippines. It is often used in the production of stainless steel. Stainless steel represents roughly 2/3 of the demand for nickel worldwide.
P.P.S. Kitco only shows one price for nickel on kitcometals.com. I would imagine there will be a day (fairly soon perhaps) where the two classes of nickel will have separate prices. How much difference in price between the two? Hard to tell. I do think it is reasonable to expect that Canadian .999 nickels will almost blindly be accepted as the better of the two types as most buyers will likely assume that production was from the Sudbury basin (Ontario) area and is therefore the high purity type.
And the text of the article for when the link goes inactive (emphasis mine)...
Thursday July 23, 2020 17:40 (per Kitco News)
Electric vehicle visionary, Elon Musk, said he is asking mining companies to produce more nickel.
Musk made the comments during his second quarter earning call earlier this week.
Musk said miners will be offered a giant contract from Tesla if they mine nickel efficiently and in an "environmental way," according to note published by Tesmanian.
The CEO of Tesla will need more raw materials. Musk also announced during the call that his company’s next gigafactory will be built in Austin, Texas. Gigafactories manufacture batteries and cars. Tesla currently has Gigafactories in the U.S., Europe and China.
Earlier this year Tesla signed a contract with Glencore for cobalt. The company has been reportedly trying to limit dependence on the material to reduce cost and avoid reliance on a material that has links to worker exploitation and environmental degradation.
Cobalt's chemistry generally provide lithium-ion batteries with greater stability.
Green Car Reports that Tesla is moving to an alternate battery chemistry: energy-dense nickel-cobalt-aluminum for its Semi production.
“The nickel-based cells have higher energy density, so longer range; those are needed for something like a Semi, where every unit of mass that you add in you have to subtract in cargo,” said Musk during the earnings call.
End of article...
For those who can get any .999 Canadian nickel at a reasonable price, what are you waiting for? Nope- not selling now.
P.S. I am not an expert on all things nickel or a scientist, but my understanding is that the kind of nickel Musk needs for his battery operations is high purity nickel. High purity nickel typically comes from colder climates like Canada and Russia. The lower purity stuff (also called nickel pig iron) comes from warmer weather locations such as Indonesia and the Philippines. It is often used in the production of stainless steel. Stainless steel represents roughly 2/3 of the demand for nickel worldwide.
P.P.S. Kitco only shows one price for nickel on kitcometals.com. I would imagine there will be a day (fairly soon perhaps) where the two classes of nickel will have separate prices. How much difference in price between the two? Hard to tell. I do think it is reasonable to expect that Canadian .999 nickels will almost blindly be accepted as the better of the two types as most buyers will likely assume that production was from the Sudbury basin (Ontario) area and is therefore the high purity type.
