Tesla's Potential North American Battery Metals Supply Chain Contenders

Since Tesla (TSLA) Battery Day, there has been a surge in interest in who can supply Tesla with the battery metals needed for them to ramp to a massive 3TWh battery capacity by 2030. To get an idea of the scale, for lithium this would mean about 2.7 million tonnes of LCE would be needed per annum, just by Tesla. This is about 9x total global lithium production in 2019.

In summary, this means for Tesla to grow to 3TWh (~20m EVs pa + energy storage), Tesla will need massive amounts of all the battery materials. According to Musk, they will also need to rely on several battery manufacturers as back up, such as existing suppliers Panasonic [TYO:6752] (OTCPK:PCRFY), Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) [SHE:300750], and LG Chem [KS:051910] (OTCPK:LGCLF).

In this article, I intend to focus on potential new Tesla EV metal suppliers from North America (USA & Canada) as Musk said at Battery Day he would prefer to source from North America, at least for his US operations. He also said he just needs the metal for their planned cathode facility, not the battery grade sulphate. For now this means a focus on lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, and high purity alumina to make high energy density nickel cathodes. I will also cover anodes and graphite, as Tesla may also look to secure that, or at least an anode supply.

Tesla's existing supply chain

As I stated in my article from late last year: "Choosing EV Metal Miners And Battery Manufacturers By Connecting The Supply Chain - December 2019:

Tesla Inc. - Battery supply deals with Panasonic (and themselves (Tesla)). Last month Tesla signed a supply deal with CATL, and they also recently signed a deal with LG Chem to supply Model 3 in China. Tesla has signed lithium offtake agreements with Bacanora Lithium [LSE-AIM:BCN] [GR:2F9] (OTCPK:BCLMF), Pure Energy Minerals [TSXV:PE], Kidman Resources (bought by Wesfarmers [ASX:WES] ---> Mt Holland JV with SQM), and more recently Ganfeng Lithium [SHE:002460] [HK: 1772]. Cobalt supply comes via Panasonic/Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (TYO:5713) (OTCPK:SMMYY) and hence from sources in the Philippines and previously Cuba (Sherritt)... Cathode supply from Tesla/Panasonic and Umicore (OTCPK:UMICF).

Note: Tesla also sources lithium from Albemarle (ALB), who source spodumene from their Greenbushes mine in Western Australia. They also source nickel from Norilsk Nickel (LSX: MNOD) (OTCPK:NILSY). Since the article above was published, Tesla has signed a cobalt deal with Glencore [HK:805] [LSE:GLEN] (OTCPK:GLCNF) and a lithium spodumene deal with Piedmont Lithium [ASX:PLL] (PLL). See the latest Tesla news immediately below.

Note: Tesla gets its anodes via Panasonic which source their anode supply from Shenzhen BTR New Energy Materials Co. Ltd. ('BTR') in China.