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I wonder more and more where the massive battery production increase will get their cobalt from. Production in the coming 5 years will be multiplied, maybe even

I wonder more and more where the massive battery production increase will get their cobalt from. Production in the coming 5 years will be multiplied, maybe even towards a different magnitude! As such, the cobalt and lithium demand will scale in the same fold. Lithium is relatively widespread (compared to cobalt), so while it gets harder to get lithium (and more expensive), it will not be impossible. Cobalt however is quite a different story. What are the producers planning to do? Dig up half Congo?

codeulike 9y ago
Tesla say they are going to source their cobalt from North America, here's an in depth analysis from techcrunch that looks at the feasibility of that: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ Tldr: it _might_ be feasible
- dogma1138 9y ago
  How exactly? the only producer of Cobalt in North America on a large scale is Canada and it doesn't look like even if Tesla reserves Canada's entire production of Cobalt that it would be enough. https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cobalt/mcs-2017-cobal.pdf https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cobalt/mcs... Edit: It could be enough for the time being as Tesla seem to still source a lot (likely most) of it's batteries from the global supply chain and not making everything in house, but if the Gigafactory goes full steam and Tesla does start producing even low to mid double digit percentage of the cells they predict they'll need for both EV and their energy storage (SolarCity) I think Elon might need to buy whatever Blackwater is calling themselves today and invade the DRP.