Canadians want to invest heavily in lithium processing> teslamag.de

Meanwhile, the state of Brandenburg has managed to get its own name behind the factory in its field, at least in official references, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously called “Giga Berlin”. Recently, the slogan “Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg” was actually put on the screens at the festival, Tesla hosted at its headquarters last Saturday, Musk also used the long form. Once the Tesla hype was over, Brandenburg Economy Minister Jörg Steinbach was able to announce another successful state settlement.

Cleantech as a partner in Tesla?

On Twitter on Monday, the minister wrote that Canadian company Rock Tech Lithium will manufacture the first converter in Europe to produce battery-compatible lithium hydroxide in Joben. To this end, he published a photograph of himself and other officials under the coat of arms of a small town in the far east of Brandenburg. As Steinbach explained in a press release, this means: With Tesla, the state will do Planned cathode production by BASF in Schwarzysdy And moving from Canada to the first region in Europe where the entire value chain of an electric vehicle can be found from raw material processing to the finished vehicle.

First, Rock Tech purchased a plot of about 12 hectares with good rail connections in the Guben-Süd industrial district for 1.1 million euros, The company announced itself. A converter plant there is scheduled to come online in 2024, which includes all steps of lithium refining. The raw materials themselves come from a mine in Canada, where they are brought in by ship and rail. Rock Tech describes itself as a clean technology company and announces that by 2030, about 50 percent of the raw materials it uses will be obtained from battery recycling.

Lithium for 500,000 electric cars per year

According to the announcement, up to 470 million euros will be invested in Guben and 160 new jobs will be created at the facilities. The planned production volume is 24,000 tons of lithium hydroxide annually — enough to power the batteries of about 500,000 electric cars, Rock Tech writes.

If any of this is for Tesla, the notice doesn’t state it, but it does. Because the company wants to produce its own batteries at its Gigafactory just 100 kilometers away in Grünheide – as CEO Musk explained at his Giga-Fest show there, even The end of 2022, at a rate of at least 5,000 electric cars per week. That’s older than what Rock Tech claims to be able to deliver, but if Tesla is really served by 2024, there should be enough other buyers: According to a recent study, Europe will be in Europe by 2030 overall. Approximately 1 TWh of battery annual production capacity Planned.